Latest news with #LSHTM
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Nearly 600 heat-related deaths expected in UK heatwave, researchers estimate
Nearly 600 people in England and Wales are predicted to die as a result of this week's heatwave, researchers have found. Experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London used decades of UK data to predict excess mortality during the hot temperatures from Thursday to Sunday. Their study, released on Saturday, forecasts that around 570 people will die because of the heat over the four days. The excess deaths are estimated to peak at 266 on Saturday when the heat will be at its most intense. London is predicted to have the greatest number of excess deaths with 129. The researchers said their assessment highlights how extreme heat poses a growing threat to public health in the UK. It follows a World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group study published on Friday which found the heatwave has been made about 100 times more likely and 2-4C hotter due to climate change. Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, lecturer at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said: 'Heatwaves are silent killers – people who lose their lives in them typically have pre-existing health conditions and rarely have heat listed as a contributing cause of death. 'This real-time analysis reveals the hidden toll of heatwaves and we want it to help raise the alarm. 'Heatwaves are an underappreciated threat in the UK and they're becoming more dangerous with climate change.' Dr Konstantinoudis warned that people should follow heat-health advice this weekend and check on older people, particularly those living alone. Temperatures had been forecast to hit 32C across the South East on Saturday and had already reached that level on Thursday in London. The UK Health Security Agency issued an amber heat-health alert covering all of England to warn vulnerable populations of the health risks, including 'a rise in deaths'. Dozens of people required treatment for heat-related illness at Royal Ascot on Thursday. The researchers used findings from published research on the relationship between heat and the number of daily deaths, regardless of the cause, in 34,753 areas of England and Wales. They combined these with high-resolution weather forecasts from the Copernicus climate change service to estimate how many heat-related deaths will occur. They estimated that 114 excess deaths would have occurred on Thursday, 152 on Friday, 266 on Saturday and 37 deaths on Sunday, when temperatures will fall to the mid-20s. People above 65 are expected to be hardest hit, with 488 of the estimated excess deaths, the report said. But the experts also warn that heat can be life-threatening for all ages, with 82 deaths estimated for people aged under 65. They also note that the analysis does not account for the effect of the heatwave occurring early in summer before people are acclimatised to hot temperatures, meaning deaths could be underestimated. A recent report by the UK Climate Change Committee estimated that heat-related deaths could rise to more than 10,000 in an average year by 2050 if fossil fuel burning causes warming to reach 2C. UN scientists warned this week that the world is in 'crunch time' to limit warming and has three years left to prevent global average temperature rises exceeding 1.5C. Professor Antonio Gasparrini, of the LSHTM, said: 'Increases of just a degree or two can be the difference between life and death. 'Every fraction of a degree of warming will cause more hospital admissions and heat deaths, putting more strain on the NHS.' Dr Malcolm Mistry, assistant professor at the LSHTM, said: 'Exposure to temperatures in the high 20s or low 30s may not seem dangerous, but they can be fatal, particularly for people aged over 65, infants, pregnant people and those with pre-existing health conditions. 'Unless effective mitigation and adaptive measures are put in place in the coming years, the risk of large heat-related death events is set to increase in the UK – we have a large ageing population and warming is expected to increase to 2C by 2050 and as high as 3C this century.' Dr Lorna Powell, an NHS urgent care doctor in east London who was not involved in the study, said: 'We are seeing cases of heat-related illnesses rising in our urgent care departments. 'Heat exhaustion can quickly trigger more serious illnesses as dehydration sets in and the cardiovascular system becomes overwhelmed.'
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Climate
- Daily Mail
UK heatwave this weekend set to see temperatures soar to 34C though with storms also ahead - as experts warn hundreds could die from 'killer' temperatures
Britain could record its hottest-ever June temperature today - with experts warning hundreds could die from the 'killer' heat. Forecasters predict highs of 34C (93F) in parts of eastern England such as Cambridgeshire, and 30C in the North East. A high of 30.8C (87.4F) was recorded at Heathrow airport yesterday, with forecasters saying there is an outside chance of today's temperature beating the all-time high for the month of 35.6C (96.08F) at London 's Camden Square on June 29, 1957. The sizzling sunshine means levels of ultraviolet radiation are likely to reach high or very high levels, with the humid conditions sparking thunderstorms. It comes as nearly 600 people in England and Wales are predicted to die as a result of this week's heatwave, researchers have found. Experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London used decades of UK data to predict excess mortality during the hot temperatures from Thursday to Sunday. Their study, released on Saturday, forecasts that around 570 people will die because of the heat over the four days. The excess deaths are estimated to peak at 266 on Saturday when the heat will be at its most intense. London is predicted to have the greatest number of excess deaths with 129. The researchers said their assessment highlights how extreme heat poses a growing threat to public health in the UK. The weekend is here These are the weather details for Saturday ⬇️ — Met Office (@metoffice) June 20, 2025 It follows a World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group study published on Friday which found the heatwave has been made about 100 times more likely and 2-4C hotter due to climate change. Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, lecturer at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said: 'Heatwaves are silent killers - people who lose their lives in them typically have pre-existing health conditions and rarely have heat listed as a contributing cause of death. 'This real-time analysis reveals the hidden toll of heatwaves and we want it to help raise the alarm. 'Heatwaves are an underappreciated threat in the UK and they're becoming more dangerous with climate change.' A warning for thunder has been issued from the north Midlands to Northumberland, including north-east Wales, with downpours, hail, lightning and gusty winds predicted from 3pm today – the Summer Solstice – to the early hours of tomorrow. The Met Office warned of 'sudden flooding' which could see communities 'cut off', transport disruption and power cuts. The hot weather is poised to linger in the South and East through the weekend. An amber heat health alert – to warn healthcare providers – lasts until Monday. Elsewhere, temperatures are set to fall from tomorrow to the high teens or low 20s. Saturday is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year That means it will have the highest number of daylight hours in 2025 ☀️ — Met Office (@metoffice) June 20, 2025 Parts of the UK are today set to be hotter than Hawaii, forecast to reach 29C (84F), and Barbados, which should hit 32C (89F). The highest temperature of the year was Thursday's 32.2C (89.96F) at Kew Gardens, south-west London. Computer modelling by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warns of up to 600 premature deaths during the hot period. Large crowds are expected to gather at Stonehenge for the annual summer solstice early on Saturday morning, with mild temperatures in the high teens expected for those observing the spectacle. Met Office spokeswoman Nicola Maxey said: 'There are scattered thunderstorms coming through. 'Some of the rain could be quite intense, and frequent lightning, hail, gusty winds and some heavy downpours, which we haven't seen for a while. 'Some of the ground is quite hard at the moment, and when you get heavy rain hitting hard ground, it can cause surface water issues. 'You might find surface water on the roads, drains finding it difficult to cope and a small chance of homes being flooded.' An official heatwave is recorded when areas reach a certain temperature for three consecutive days, with thresholds varying from 25C to 28C in different parts of the UK. The Met Office confirmed that 'many places' in England and 'one or two areas' in Wales, including Cardiff, entered a heatwave on Friday. Aidan McGovern, meteorologist at the Met Office, said: 'At the moment, the temperatures will be highest towards the east, [with] lower temperatures in the west compared with Friday but still high humidity, so it's going to feel oppressive in many places, and [there is] always a chance of some showers developing as the day progresses, particularly towards the west. 'Temperatures [will be] peaking at 31 to 33, or 34C, somewhere between London and Midlands and north-east England.' There will also be very high UV and pollen levels across the country on Saturday, the forecaster said. Temperatures reached 32.2C in Kew, west London, on Thursday, making it the warmest day of the year so far, while Friday saw highs of 30.8C recorded in both England and Wales. The amber heat-health alert, issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) for the first time since September 2023, is in force until 9am on Monday. It warns 'significant impacts are likely' across health and social care services because of high temperatures, including a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or people with health conditions. Following the hot weather, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) urged the public to take heat and water safety seriously. During 2022's heatwave, temperatures rose past 40C, leading to 320 people being treated in hospital. Steve Cole, policy director at RoSPA, said: 'Heat is no longer just a holiday perk - it's a growing public health risk. 'We're seeing more frequent and intense heatwaves, both in the UK and globally, and the data shows a clear rise in heat-related illness and fatalities. 'Warm weather can also be deceptive when it comes to going for a dip. 'While the air may feel hot, water temperatures often remain dangerously cold, which can lead to cold-water shock, even in summer.'
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Climate
- Daily Mirror
Heatwave 'to kill nearly 600 people' as weekend temps hit 32C, experts warn
Temperatures are set to soar between Thursday to Sunday with some parts of the country expected to reach 34C - but exprets have issued an ugent warning ahead of the heatwave Researchers fear nearly 600 people could die in England and Wales as temperatures heat up this week. The last few days have seen Brits hit with sweltering heat blasts reaching well above the average for the time of year, with the southeast blasted with 31C on Thursday and a blistering 32C expected in the area on Saturday. The rest of the nation will see similar but not quite as unbearable extremes between 18C and 28C, with no sign of rain until the following week Specialists from both the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London have warned the extreme heat could reuslt in excess mortality amid searing heats between Thursday and Sunday. Their study, which drew upon historical UK data, anticipates approximately 570 deaths due to the sweltering conditions spanning over those four days. The projected peak of excess deaths is expected to hit 266 on Saturday, correlating with the fiercest heat. Specifically, London faces the possibility of the highest excess death toll, with 129 anticipated cases. According to the researchers, their examination underscores the increasingly perilous nature of extreme heat on public health within the UK. This comes on the heels of a World Weather Attribution (WWA) group analysis made public on Friday, revealing the heatwave's likelihood and intensity has risen substantially, attributed to climate change by estimates of 100 times likelihood and an increase of 2-4C in temperature. Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Grantham Institute lecturer at Imperial College London, underscored: "Heatwaves are silent killers – people who lose their lives in them typically have pre-existing health conditions and rarely have heat listed as a contributing cause of death." He emphasised the urgency of awareness, stating that "This real-time analysis reveals the hidden toll of heatwaves and we want it to help raise the alarm." He warned: "Heatwaves are an underappreciated threat in the UK and they're becoming more dangerous with climate change." Dr Konstantinoudis has urged the public to heed heat-health warnings this weekend and to keep a watchful eye on the elderly, particularly those who are living by themselves. With predictions of temperatures soaring to 32C in the South East on Saturday, London already felt the sweltering touch hitting the forecasted highs on Thursday. The team of experts analysed data sourced from existing research assessing the connection between thermal extremes and day-to-day mortality rates for any reason across 34,753 locales in England and Wales. Merging this data with precise weather projections courtesy of Copernicus' climate service, they offered an estimate for the imminent heat-related fatalities. Their calculations indicate that there could have been 114 additional deaths on Thursday, 152 on Friday, ramping up to 266 on Saturday, and subsiding to 37 on Sunday as the mercury dips to less temperamental mid-20s. Predictions highlight those over 65 as being the most vulnerable, estimating 488 excess deaths within this demographic, according to the report. However, experts remind us that rising temperatures pose risks to life across all age brackets, with an estimated 82 younger individuals potentially succumbing to the heat. Furthermore, they caution that this scrutiny might underestimate the impact, given it overlooks how early-season heatwaves can catch populations off guard before they acclimatise to heightened temperatures. The UK Climate Change Committee has published a startling report, estimating that if the temperature soars by 2C due to unabated fossil fuel combustion, heat-related deaths could skyrocket to over 10,000 annually by 2050. This week, United Nations experts have sounded the alarm bells, declaring that we're at a do-or-die moment to curb rising temperatures, with only a three-year window to thwart global temps from breaching the critical 1.5C mark. Professor Antonio Gasparrini from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) weighed in on the subject: "Increases of just a degree or two can be the difference between life and death." He outlined the sobering ripple effects: "Every fraction of a degree of warming will cause more hospital admissions and heat deaths, putting more strain on the NHS." Assistant Professor Dr Malcolm Mistry, also from LSHTM, highlighted even warm temperatures we might brush off as harmless could actually spell disaster: "Exposure to temperatures in the high 20s or low 30s may not seem dangerous, but they can be fatal, particularly for people aged over 65, infants, pregnant people and those with pre-existing health conditions." He sent out a dire warning: "Unless effective mitigation and adaptive measures are put in place in the coming years, the risk of large heat-related death events is set to increase in the UK – we have a large ageing population and warming is expected to increase to 2C by 2050 and as high as 3C this century." Speaking from experience, Dr Lorna Powell, an NHS urgent care doctor based in east London who was not linked to the research, reported: "We are seeing cases of heat-related illnesses rising in our urgent care departments." She indicated the swift progression of such ailments: "Heat exhaustion can quickly trigger more serious illnesses as dehydration sets in and the cardiovascular system becomes overwhelmed."
The Independent
a day ago
- Health
- The Independent
Nearly 600 heat-related deaths expected in UK heatwave, researchers estimate
Nearly 600 people in England and Wales are predicted to die as a result of this week's heatwave, researchers have found. Experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London used decades of UK data to predict excess mortality during the hot temperatures from Thursday to Sunday. Their study, released on Saturday, forecasts that around 570 people will die because of the heat over the four days. The excess deaths are estimated to peak at 266 on Saturday when the heat will be at its most intense. London is predicted to have the greatest number of excess deaths with 129. The researchers said their assessment highlights how extreme heat poses a growing threat to public health in the UK. It follows a World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group study published on Friday which found the heatwave has been made about 100 times more likely and 2-4C hotter due to climate change. Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, lecturer at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said: 'Heatwaves are silent killers – people who lose their lives in them typically have pre-existing health conditions and rarely have heat listed as a contributing cause of death. 'This real-time analysis reveals the hidden toll of heatwaves and we want it to help raise the alarm. 'Heatwaves are an underappreciated threat in the UK and they're becoming more dangerous with climate change.' Dr Konstantinoudis warned that people should follow heat-health advice this weekend and check on older people, particularly those living alone. Temperatures had been forecast to hit 32C across the South East on Saturday and had already reached that level on Thursday in London. The UK Health Security Agency issued an amber heat-health alert covering all of England to warn vulnerable populations of the health risks, including 'a rise in deaths'. Dozens of people required treatment for heat-related illness at Royal Ascot on Thursday. The researchers used findings from published research on the relationship between heat and the number of daily deaths, regardless of the cause, in 34,753 areas of England and Wales. They combined these with high-resolution weather forecasts from the Copernicus climate change service to estimate how many heat-related deaths will occur. They estimated that 114 excess deaths would have occurred on Thursday, 152 on Friday, 266 on Saturday and 37 deaths on Sunday, when temperatures will fall to the mid-20s. People above 65 are expected to be hardest hit, with 488 of the estimated excess deaths, the report said. But the experts also warn that heat can be life-threatening for all ages, with 82 deaths estimated for people aged under 65. They also note that the analysis does not account for the effect of the heatwave occurring early in summer before people are acclimatised to hot temperatures, meaning deaths could be underestimated. A recent report by the UK Climate Change Committee estimated that heat-related deaths could rise to more than 10,000 in an average year by 2050 if fossil fuel burning causes warming to reach 2C. UN scientists warned this week that the world is in 'crunch time' to limit warming and has three years left to prevent global average temperature rises exceeding 1.5C. Professor Antonio Gasparrini, of the LSHTM, said: 'Increases of just a degree or two can be the difference between life and death. 'Every fraction of a degree of warming will cause more hospital admissions and heat deaths, putting more strain on the NHS.' Dr Malcolm Mistry, assistant professor at the LSHTM, said: 'Exposure to temperatures in the high 20s or low 30s may not seem dangerous, but they can be fatal, particularly for people aged over 65, infants, pregnant people and those with pre-existing health conditions. 'Unless effective mitigation and adaptive measures are put in place in the coming years, the risk of large heat-related death events is set to increase in the UK – we have a large ageing population and warming is expected to increase to 2C by 2050 and as high as 3C this century.' Dr Lorna Powell, an NHS urgent care doctor in east London who was not involved in the study, said: 'We are seeing cases of heat-related illnesses rising in our urgent care departments. 'Heat exhaustion can quickly trigger more serious illnesses as dehydration sets in and the cardiovascular system becomes overwhelmed.'
Fast Company
08-06-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
5 lessons on finding truth in an uncertain world
Adam Kucharski is a professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and an award-winning science writer. His book, The Rules of Contagion, was a Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, and Financial Times. A mathematician by training, his work on global outbreaks has included Ebola, Zika, and COVID. He has advised multiple governments and health agencies. His writing has appeared in Wired, Observer, and Financial Times, among other outlets, and he has contributed to several documentaries, including BBC's Horizon. What's the big idea? In all arenas of life, there is an endless hunt to find certainty and establish proof. We don't always have the luxury of 'being sure,' and many situations demand decisions be made even when there is insufficient evidence to choose confidently. Every field—from mathematics and tech to law and medicine—has its own methods for proving truth, and what to do when it is out of reach. Professionally and personally, it is important to understand what constitutes proof and how to proceed when facts falter. Below, Adam shares five key insights from his new book, Proof: The Art and Science of Certainty. Listen to the audio version—read by Adam himself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. It is dangerous to assume something is self-evident. In the first draft of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers wrote that 'we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal.' But shortly before it was finalized, Benjamin Franklin crossed out the words 'sacred and undeniable,' because they implied divine authority. Instead, he replaced them with the famous line, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident.' The term 'self-evident' was borrowed from mathematics—specifically from Greek geometry. The idea was that there could be a universal truth about equality on which a society could be built. This idea of self-evident, universal truths had shaped mathematics for millennia. But the assumption ended up causing a lot of problems, both in politics and mathematics. In the 19th century, mathematicians started to notice that certain theorems that had been declared 'intuitively obvious' didn't hold up when we considered things that were infinitely large or infinitely small. It seemed 'self-evident' didn't always mean well-evidenced. Meanwhile, in the U.S., supporters of slavery were denying what Abraham Lincoln called the national axioms of equality. In the 1850s, Lincoln (himself a keen amateur mathematician) increasingly came to think of equality as a proposition rather than a self-evident truth. It was something that would need to be proven together as a country. Similarly, mathematicians during this period would move away from assumptions that things were obvious and instead work to find sturdier ground. 2. In practice, proof means balancing too much belief and too much skepticism. If we want to get closer to the truth, there are two errors we must avoid: we don't want to believe things that are false, and we don't want to discount things that are true. It's a challenge that comes up throughout life. But where should we set the bar for evidence? If we're overly skeptical and set it too high, we'll ignore valid claims. But if we set the bar too low, we'll end up accepting many things that aren't true. In the 1760s, the English legal scholar William Blackstone argued that we should work particularly hard to avoid wrongful convictions. As he put it: 'It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.' Benjamin Franklin would later be even more cautious. He suggested that 'it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.' 'We don't want to believe things that are false, and we don't want to discount things that are true.' But not all societies have agreed with this balance. Some communist regimes in the 20th century declared it better to kill a hundred innocent people than let one truly guilty person walk free. Science and medicine have also developed their own traditions around setting the bar for evidence. Clinical trials are typically designed in a way that penalizes a false positive four times more than a false negative. In other words, we don't want to say a treatment doesn't work when it does, but we really don't want to conclude it works when it doesn't. This ability to converge on a shared reality, even if occasionally flawed, is fundamental for science and medicine. It's also an essential component of democracy and justice. Rather than embracing or shunning everything we see, we must find ways to balance the risk that comes with trusting something to be true. 3. Life is full of 'weak evidence' problems. Science is dedicated to generating results that we can have high confidence in. But often in life, we must make choices without the luxury of extremely strong evidence. We can't, as some early statisticians did, simply remain on the fence if we're not confident either way. Whether we're sitting on a jury or in a boardroom, we face situations where a decision must be made regardless. This is known as the 'weak evidence' problem. For example, it might be very unlikely that a death is just a coincidence. But it also might be very unlikely that a certain person is a murderer. Legal cases are often decided on the basis that weak evidence in favor of the prosecution is more convincing than weak evidence for the defendant. Unfortunately, it can be easy to misinterpret weak evidence. A prominent example is the prosecutor's fallacy. This is a situation where people assume that if it's very unlikely a particular set of events occurred purely by coincidence, that must mean the defendant is very unlikely to be innocent. But to work out the probability of innocence, we can't just focus on the chances of a coincidence. What really matters is whether a guilty explanation is more likely than an innocent one. To navigate law—and life—we must often choose between unlikely explanations, rather than waiting for certainty. 4. Predictions are easier than taking action. If we spot a pattern in data, it can help us make predictions. If ice cream sales increase next month, it's reasonable to predict that heatstroke cases will too. These kinds of patterns can be useful if we want to make predictions, but they're less useful if we want to intervene in some way. The correlation in the data doesn't mean that ice cream causes heatstroke, and crucially, it doesn't tell us how to prevent further illness. 'Often in life, prediction isn't what we really care about.' In science, many problems are framed as prediction tasks because, fundamentally, it's easier than untangling cause and effect. In the field of social psychology, researchers use data to try to predict relationship outcomes. In the world of justice, courts use algorithms to predict whether someone will reoffend. But often in life, prediction isn't what we really care about. Whether we're talking about relationships or crimes, we don't just want to know what is likely to happen—we want to know why it happened and what we can do about it. In short, we need to get at the causes of what we're seeing, rather than settling for predictions. 5. Technology is changing our concept of proof. In 1976, two mathematicians announced the first-ever computer-aided proof. Their discovery meant that, for the first time in history, the mathematical community had to accept a major theorem that they could not verify by hand. However, not everyone initially believed the proof. Maybe the computer had made an error somewhere? Suddenly, mathematicians no longer had total intellectual control; they had to trust a machine. But then something curious happened. While older researchers had been skeptical, younger mathematicians took the opposite view. Why would they trust hundreds of pages of handwritten and hand-checked calculations? Surely a computer would be more accurate, right? Technology is challenging how we view science and proof. In 2024, we saw the AI algorithm AlphaFold make a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in biology. AlphaFold can predict protein structures and their interactions in a way that humans would never have been able to. But these predictions don't necessarily come with traditional biological understanding. Among many scientists, I've noticed a sense of loss when it comes to AI. For people trained in theory and explanation, crunching possibilities with a machine doesn't feel like familiar science. It may even feel like cheating or a placeholder for a better, neater solution that we've yet to find. And yet, there is also an acceptance that this is a valuable new route to knowledge, and the fresh ideas and discoveries it can bring.
