Climate-change danger for chronically ill
24th April 2012
By Staff writer
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at Medicare data from 1985 to 2006 to track the long-term health of 3.7 million chronically ill people aged more than 65 years.
They found that every one-degree increase in summer temperature increased the mortality rate by 4% for people with diabetes, 3.8% for post-myocardial infarct, 2.8% for people with heart failure and 3.7% for people with chronic lung disease.
While previous research has focused on the short-term effects of heat waves, this is the first study to examine the longer-term effects of climate change on life