As summer turns deadly in parts of Europe, a new report shows that one group may be more at risk in the extreme heat.
While the exact number and breakdown of deaths linked to the heatwaves across Spain, Portugal, France and other countries will take months to calculate, women — especially those experiencing menopause or heart issues — are typically more susceptible to extreme heat, according to a report in German news outlet DW.
But as some news outlets have focused on the hormonal differences between women and men, scientists told DW that biology is unlikely to be the main cause for the sweeping fatalities.
Rather, women’s living conditions and social environments make more of a difference, according to Alexandra Schneider, an environmental epidemiologist and deputy director of the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Munich.
Those factors make women even more at risk “than just the differences in hormone status,” Schneider said.
Toby Mündel, a kinesiology professor at Brock University in Canada who studies extreme human environments, agreed that biological sex is not the sole marker of how one copes with extreme heat. Age, body size and level of fitness activity play a bigger role.
In France, health authorities have estimated about 1,000 excess deaths over just a few days in June, while 5,100 lives were lost in heat-related deaths in Germany over the same period. Extreme heat caused by climate change is also fueling wildfires that last longer and are harder to contain.
According to research published in Nature Medicine, there were 56% more heat-related deaths among women than men during Europe’s previous record-breaking summer of 2022. However, women also make up a larger share of the oldest age groups, which could account for the higher death toll, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
