In Chicago, three African American women in their 60s and 70s died in spring 2022 when the centrally controlled heating in their housing complex remained on and the air conditioning was off despite unseasonable 90-degree weather in mid-May.Īn undetermined number of older people died during the summer of 2021 when an unexpected heat wave swept across the U.S. Older people of color, with a greater tendency for chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure are especially at risk.

While most of the county's confirmed 378 heat-associated deaths were outdoors, those who died indoors were especially vulnerable because of isolation, mobility issues or medical problems as outside summertime highs hit 115 degrees (46.1 C). Isolated and vulnerable, the heat victims last year during Maricopa County's deadliest summer on record included a couple in their 80s without known relatives, an 83-year-old woman with dementia living alone after her husband entered hospice care and a 62-year-old Rwandan refugee whose air conditioner broke down.

Another study showed that in coming decades dangerous heat will hit much of the world at least three times as hard as climate change worsens.ĪLSO READ | Heatwaves may impede social development cities, many in the East and Midwest, where people often don’t have air conditioning or are not acclimated to hot weather. It found more than 1,100 deaths a year from climate change-caused heat in some 200 U.S. heat deaths each year can be attributed to human-caused global warming. “The world is changing rapidly and I fear we are not acting fast enough to teach people how harmful rising temperatures can be.'Ī 2021 study estimated more than a third of U.S. “Phoenix really is the model for what we’ll be seeing in other places,” said researcher Jennifer Ailshire, a native of the desert city now at the University of Southern California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology where she studies how environmental factors affect health and aging. Temperatures this year were already hitting the high 90s the first week of April. Such fatalities are so common that Arizona’s largest county keeps a weekly online tally during the six-month hot season from May through October. Situated in the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix and its suburbs are ground zero for heat-associated deaths in the U.S.

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