Extreme temperatures come at a high price

A study prepared at the University of Bern shows in detail for the first time how heat in Switzerland has increasingly led to high death rates over the past 50 years. The combination of climate change and an aging population, it concludes, will become a major source of problems in the future. The effect that global warming has on Switzerland is becoming increasingly apparent. A study by the University of Bern just published in the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives" shows how the number of additional deaths attributable to the heat and the cold has changed over the past 50 years. The increasingly elderly population plays a large role, and is one of the most vulnerable groups. "Our findings demonstrate that climate change and aging present a double challenge for future generations," says Evan de Schrijver, the study's lead author. De Schrijver is a doctoral candidate in the Climate Change and Health research group at the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research and the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern.