Economist examines costs of extreme cold weather
December 20, 2007 Fatalities in the continental United States tend to climb for several weeks after severe cold spells, ultimately numbering 360 per chilly day and 14,380 per year, according to a new study co-authored by a University of California, Berkeley, economist.
Deaths linked to extreme cold account for 0.8 percent of the nation's annual death rate and outnumber those attributed to leukemia, murder and chronic liver disease combined, the study reports.
Cold-related deaths also reduce the average life expectancy of Americans by at least a decade, it says.
The numbers are "remarkably large," said Enrico Moretti, a UC Berkeley associate professor of economics, and Oliver Deschenes, an associate professor of economics at UC Santa Barbara, in a December 2007 working paper, "Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration."
The study also says that demographic shifts from colder climes to warmer ones - for reasons such as better jobs, cheaper housing and sunshine - appear to delay an estimated 4,600 deaths a year. The researchers also said that over the past 30 years, longevity gains associated with geographic mobility accounted for between 4 and 7 percent of the increases in life expectancy in the United States.
In research conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research, the economists looked at immediate and longer-term death rates after at least 24 hours at temperatures between 10 and 20 Fahrenheit degrees below normal - and those over 80 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit - for the county and the month observed.
They offer new evidence of the role of extreme weather in understanding the underlying causes of a steadily improving average lifespan in the United States and provide insights for policy makers charged with allocating financial and other resources following often headline-grabbing heat or freezing weather.
The establishment, at often great expense, of "cooling centers" and the mobilization of emergency personnel in major cities in advance of or after heat waves doesn't seem to serve much purpose beyond alleviating mild discomfort, said Moretti.
Likewise, he said, there seem to be few immediate options for helping those most at risk deal with cold weather dangers: "A lifetime of deprivation is hard to counteract in the short run."
Noting increasing concern that higher temperatures and incidence of extreme weather events caused by global warming could create major public health problems, the economists said they relied on actual, recorded data and avoided hypothetical possibilities.
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