Report shows Florida’s heat-related deaths may be 40 times higher than CDC estimates
Report shows Florida’s heat-related deaths may be 40 times higher than CDC estimates
“It may just get reported as something different, because some people may want to skirt any attention or having any regulations,” Glickman said. “And then there’s going to be other times where people just don’t realize what the cause of death was.”
By Luiza Medeiros De Campos at WMNF
Recently, NPR released a report showing heat is killing 5 times more people in the U.S. than it is reported.
NPR and Boston University built a statistical model to find the total number of heat-related deaths in nearly every county in the US.
The tracking data process took two years.
According to the report, there are about 7,500 heat-related deaths in 2025.
Florida and Texas were estimated to have the most heat-related deaths overall.
But the official estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows only about 1,800 heat deaths.
Susan Glickman is the Vice President for Policy and Partnerships at The CLEO Institute.
“It may just get reported as something different, because some people may want to skirt any attention or having any regulations,” Glickman said. “And then there’s going to be other times where people just don’t realize what the cause of death was.”
According to the NPR report, intense heat can be deadly and cause heat exhaustion or even heat stroke.
Heat exhaustion comes with symptoms like excessive sweating, dizziness, cool pale skin, and risk of fainting.
While heat stroke starts as a rapid strong pulse, no sweating and soon after the person might lose their consciousness.
Glickman said there are some people who are more exposed to these dangers.
“You have children and their body temperatures rise three times faster than an adults,” Glickman said. “So people have to be very conscious of what this does to children and older people.”
She also said that a significant portion of these heat related deaths involve outdoor workers.
Part of the problem is that heat leaves no obvious mark behind.
That way, doctors or coroners are not able to examine and it can also often trigger pre-existing health conditions.
Then, heat isn’t noted on the death certificate, and can’t be included in the tallies reported to the city, the state and the federal recordkeepers.
“So if someone has a heart condition, but the extreme heat brought on the heart attack, which is fatal, then it might simply just be reported as a heart attack, ignoring sort of the stressor that made that happen,” Glickman said.
The report estimated that in Florida there are about 40 times more heat related deaths than reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It also shows that in Hillsborough County, the CDC reported an average of 2.3 deaths per year.
But the NPR model says the number is closer to 101 deaths per year.
“It may just get reported as something different, because some people may want to skirt any attention or having any regulations,” Glickman said. “And then there’s going to be other times where people just don’t realize what the cause of death was.”
