| Abstrakt: |
Climate change is causing more frequent and severe extreme heat events (EHEs) in Canada, resulting in significant loss of life. However, patterns across mortality reporting for historical EHEs have not been analyzed. To address this gap, we studied deaths in Canadian EHEs from 1936 to 2021, identifying trends and challenges. Our analysis revealed inconsistencies in mortality data, discrepancies between vulnerable populations identified, difficulties in determining the cause of death, and inconsistent reporting on social vulnerability indicators. We provide some observations that could help inform solutions to address the gaps and challenges, by moving toward more consistent and comprehensive reporting to ensure no population is overlooked. Accurately accounting for affected populations could help better target evidence‐based interventions, and reduce vulnerability to extreme heat. Plain Language Summary: Climate change in Canada is leading to more severe heatwaves, causing many unnecessary deaths. However, there is no understanding of patterns of death across these extreme heat events (EHEs). To fill this gap, we studied data from EHEs in Canada between 1936 and 2021 to help identify trends and challenges. Our analysis revealed inconsistent and limited information about deaths, discrepancies between vulnerable populations identified in literature and reported data, difficulty in determining direct heat‐related causes of death, and inconsistent consideration of social vulnerability indicators. We provide some observations that could help inform ways to address these challenges, by moving toward more consistent and comprehensive reporting of heat‐related mortality data across Canada. This more accurate information could help target evidence‐based interventions, reduce vulnerability, and improve Canadians' ability to adapt to extreme heat. Key Points: There is an inconsistency in the amount, type, and depth of mortality data across extreme heat events (EHEs) in CanadaThere are challenges in ascertaining heat as the direct or indirect cause of deathConsideration of compounding impacts of social vulnerability indicators is inconsistent across reports of EHE‐related deaths [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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