United States. A new study found that home air conditioning has played a key role in reducing American death rates over the past half-century, by keeping people cool on days of extreme heat.
The installation of air conditioning in American homes is why the chances of dying on a very hot day fell 80% over the past half-century, according to an analysis by a team of American researchers.
The results, based on a comprehensive study of U.S. mortality records dating back to 1900, suggest that the spread of air conditioning in developing countries could play an important role in preventing future heat- and climate-change-related deaths.
Very few American homes had air conditioning before 1960, by 2004, that figure rose to 85%.
A team of researchers from Tulane University, Carnegie Mellon University, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined patterns in heat-related deaths between 1900 and 2004. The group found that days when temperatures rose above 90 degrees Fahrenheit accounted for about 600 premature deaths a year between 1960 and 2004, one-sixth as many as would have occurred under pre-1960 conditions.
