Coroners Ignore Heat in Many Deaths. That's Dangerous.

Heat is a major killer in the United States, but many coroners and medical examiners are not properly investigating heat-related deaths.

Between 2004 and 2018, extreme heat caused more than 10,000 deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that only about half of those deaths were properly attributed to heat.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at more than 1.6 million deaths in 20 states between 2004 and 2018. The researchers found that only about 53% of heat-related deaths were correctly identified as such on death certificates.

This means that thousands of heat-related deaths are going uncounted each year.

That's a problem because heat is a serious public health threat. Heat can cause a variety of health problems, including heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and dehydration. It can also exacerbate existing health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes.

The undercounting of heat-related deaths is likely due to a number of factors, including a lack of awareness among coroners and medical examiners about the dangers of heat, and a lack of training on how to properly investigate heat-related deaths.

Coroners and medical examiners need to be better trained on how to investigate heat-related deaths.

The Harvard study found that coroners and medical examiners who had received training on heat-related deaths were more likely to correctly identify them on death certificates.

There are a number of resources available to help coroners and medical examiners learn more about heat-related deaths. The CDC has developed a training module on heat-related deaths, and the National Association of Medical Examiners has a number of resources on its website.

In addition to training, coroners and medical examiners need to have access to the right tools and equipment to investigate heat-related deaths.

This includes thermometers, humidity gauges, and other devices that can help them measure the environmental conditions in which a death occurred.

By improving their training and access to resources, coroners and medical examiners can help to ensure that heat-related deaths are properly investigated and counted. This will help to raise awareness of the dangers of heat and lead to better prevention and response efforts.