MONDAY, Dec. 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) — From 1999 to 2022, there was an increase in cold-related age-adjusted mortality rates (AAMRs), according to a research letter published online Dec. 19 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Michael Liu, from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues assessed trends in cold-related mortality using the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research platform. Death certificates from 1999 to 2022 in which cold was recorded as an underlying or contributing cause of death were examined.

The researchers found that between 1999 and 2022, there were 63,550,429 deaths in the United States, of which 0.06 percent had cold recorded as an underlying or contributing cause of death. Cold-related AAMRs increased from 0.44 to 0.92 per 100,000 persons from 1999 to 2022 (109 percent increase). During the study period, there was a 3.4 percent annual increase seen in the cold-related AAMR, with a nonsignificant increase from 1999 to 2017 (annual percent change [APC], 1.0 percent), followed by a significant annual increase from 2017 to 2022 (APC, 12.1 percent). Adults aged 75 years or older had the highest cold-related AAMRs (4.23 per 100,000 persons in 2022); the largest annual increase between 1999 and 2022 was seen for adults aged 45 to 74 years (APC, 4.8 percent). Males and females had significant increases during the study period, but males had higher AAMRs than females.

“Cold-related mortality rates more than doubled in the United States between 1999 and 2022,” the authors write. “Prior research suggests that cold temperatures account for most temperature-related mortality.”

One author disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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