Heatwaves in Vienna: effects on mortality

Abstract

An impact of heatwaves on mortality was apparent in Vienna, although not as pronounced as in France and south-western Europe. In 2003 at least 130 heatwave-related deaths in Vienna could have been avoided by prompt medical assistance and proper advice about how to cope with excessive thermal conditions. Preventive programs are warranted during heatwaves, especially to target elderly people, because the likelihood of heatwaves as a consequence of global warming is increasing.

The effects of the 1996–2012 summer heat events on human mortality in Slovakia

“…Kyselý, 2004;Hutter et al, 2007;Kyselý and Kříž, 2008;Matzarakis et al, 2011;Stanojević et al, 2014). The highest relative increases during the individual heat periods exceeded 20%, which is also similar to other Central European studies (Kyselý, 2004;Páldy et al, 2005).…”

“…In Prague, the increase during an extended heat peak period between the 2 nd and 22 nd of August was 3.2% (Knobová et al, 2014), in Vienna 5% for the entire summer (Hutter et al, 2007) and in Switzerland 6.9% for the entire summer (Grize et al, 2005). These values are considerably lower than those for the majority of the Western European countries (cf.…”

“…Hutter et al, 2007;Kyselý and Plavcová, 2012;Páldy and Bobvos, 2012). The results of several European research publications have shown somewhat higher long-term sensitivity in females during heat waves when taking into account variations in age structure as well (Matzarakis et al, 2011;Hajat and Barnard, 2014).…”

“…Several contributions have focused on the population of the Czech Republic (e.g. Kyselý, 2004;Kyselý and Huth, 2004;Kyselý and Kříž, 2008;Kyselý and Plavcová, 2012;Knobová et al, 2014), as well as Austria (Hutter et al, 2007; Muthers et al, 2010a,b;Matzarakis et al, 2011), Switzerland (Grize et al, 2005), Poland (Kuchcik and Degórski, 2009), Hungary (Páldy et al, 2005; Bobvos, 2010, 2012), Croatia (Zaninović and Matzarakis, 2014), Serbia (Bogdanović et al, 2013; Stanovejić et al, 2014), and Moldova (Overcenco, 2010;Opopol et al, 2012;Corobov et al, 2013). In several cases, and this is also valid in global terms, most of the studies were aimed specifically at populations of larger cities or metropolitan areas where a higher risk of death can be generally expected due to a higher sensitivity of the population as a consequence of climate (urban heat island, higher air pollution, etc.)…”

Kapitel 6: Der Einfluss des Klimawandels auf die Anthroposphäre

“…Im Sommer 2003 kam es in Wien zu etwa 180 zusätzlichen durch Hitze bedingten Todesfällen (Hutter et al, 2007). Moshammer untersuchte mit jeweils unterschiedlichen Co-Autor Innen Moshammer et al, 2009) .…”