[gonzo41]

I think there's a bit of a definitional skew happening here. The data isn't that good around this stuff.

Heat as the primary factor, vs heat related deaths is significant.

Heat is a system stressor. There's plenty of people having heart attacks and dying from weight related issues that probably got pushed over the edge by a hot day in Nevada that are missed in official stats.

[Ferret7446]

I can't imagine this is significant unless there is a demonstrated reporting bias between the US and Europe. Otherwise I'd assume it's a wash

[IneffablePigeon]

There was a good More Or Less (uk radio programme) episode about this last week. Essentially, the European statistics on this tend to be based on excess mortality during hot periods, while US stats currently are much more about what words are used on death certificates. Very different measures and hard to compare.

[verteu]

You can compare modeled heat deaths across different countries, Western Europe is still significantly higher. Eg Figure 3C in https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7618246/

It doesn't affect life expectancy much, because most deaths are among the elderly (70% over 80 IIRC).

[Filligree]

There is. In Texas, if a field worker has a heart attack on a hot day it’ll be reported as a heart attack.

In France, the same exact situation would be reported as a heat casualty leading to heart attack.