Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4. Climate change has already led to a significant temperature increase in Germany. Heat can aggravate pre-existing conditions such as diseases of the cardiovascular system, the respiratory tract, or the kidneys and trigger potentially harmful side effects for numerous medications. A significant increase in mortality is regularly observed during heat events.
Previous approaches to mitigate the health impact of high temperatures include, for example, the heat alerts of the German Meteorological Service and recommendations for the preparation of heat-health action plans.
Evidence on health impacts of heat and awareness of the need for heat-related health protection have grown in recent years, but there is still a need for further action and research. Rising temperatures and an increase in the frequency and intensity of heat events are among the most directly perceptible consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Other extreme weather events are discussed elsewhere in this progress report by Butsch et al.
The health effects of high temperatures, including heat-related mortality, are increasingly becoming the focus of scientific and political initiatives, in Germany and internationally [ 2 ]. In the first part of this article we summarise the current state of knowledge on heat and its health impacts for Germany, in the main part we go into detail on adaptation measures that are being implemented and recommended, and in the third part we give an outlook on implementation and research questions that may arise.
This compilation was completed at the end of May and reflects the status of the implementation of measures and recommendations at that time. As awareness of the health effects of heat and the need for countermeasures are constantly increasing, it is possible that further measures will have been decided upon by the time of publication and that individual recommendations have therefore already been followed.
