Heat now more lethal than cold for people with respiratory diseases in Spain

A new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a center supported by the la Caixa Foundation, has analyzed deaths linked to respiratory disease in Spain between 1980 and 2016. The study, which analyzed data on more than 1.3 million deaths, found that the seasonality of temperature-attributable mortality from respiratory diseases has shifted from the coldest to the hottest months of the year. The authors concluded that the decrease in temperature-attributable mortality during the winter months is driven not by the rising temperatures associated with climate change, but by the adaptation of the population to lower temperatures.