Cold weather kills far more people than hot weather, study shows

Cold weather is associated with nearly 20 times more deaths than hot weather, shows an international study that analysed more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries.

Reporting in the Lancet,1 researchers analysed data from 384 locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They calculated deaths attributable to heat and cold, defined as temperatures above and below the optimum temperature for each place corresponding to the point of minimum mortality.

In total, …