NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll

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By Alejandra Borunda, NPR. 

Excerpt: The primary keeper of cause-of-death records in the U.S. is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It keeps an annual tally of heat-related deaths in the U.S., which is compiled from state reports based on whether heat is noted on individual death records. From 2004 to 2018, the national number of heat-related deaths compiled by the CDC was low: on average, around 700 a year. The number has crept up in recent years, averaging around 1,700 but sometimes topping 2,000, as heat risks grow and counting strategies evolve. But even that number is an underestimate, according to NPR and BU's analysis. On average between 2018 and 2025, we estimate that some 9,000 deaths each year in the country are impacted by heat — a factor of five higher than the official average over that same period. Some years, heat-related deaths can top 10,000. The true figure could be even higher, says Adams, because of some limitations in the data and the conservative nature of our analysis. The dangers from heat are growing every year because of human-caused climate change. The heat wave season has extended by a month and a half since the 1960s. In 50 of the country's biggest cities, the number of heat waves has doubled since the 1980s. Heat domes that settle over the country regularly expose tens of millions of Americans — sometimes well over 100 million at a time — to dangerous heat.... 

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