Annual heat-related deaths in New York City have climbed over the past decade, right along with roiling summer temperatures, according to a report released on Thursday by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
An estimated 350 people each year – about 2% of all deaths in the city between May and September – die prematurely from heat-related causes.
The vast majority of these people don’t have heat listed on their death certificate but instead have an underlying illness – such as heart disease, for example – that’s exacerbated by hot weather. After plateauing at about 100 annual deaths in the 2000s, the death toll has been on the rise in recent years and has surged into the 300s, according to a graph of the findings.
Another estimated seven people annually die directly of heat stroke, according to death certificate data, with the highest death rates among those older than 60, men, Black people and residents of high-poverty neighborhoods. Black New Yorkers are more than twice as likely to die from heat stroke as white New Yorkers, according to the report.
“This inequity is due to past and current structural racism that creates economic, health care, housing, energy and other systems that benefit white people and disadvantage people of color,” the report said.
But the city’s hottest days aren’t the main culprit for the rising heat-related death toll. Instead, it’s the ordinary hot days below the extremes that are causing the most damage and claiming an increasing number of lives.
The number of heat-related deaths during extreme heat has remained relatively constant in the past decade, hovering around about 100 annually. Those are days for which the National Weather Service issues a heat advisory, with the threshold being a maximum temperature above 100 degrees for a single day or 95 degrees for two days. And the figure pertains to the “indirect” deaths where heat isn’t listed as a cause of death.
Meanwhile, when taking into account hot days featuring…
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