Who has died of heat in Idaho? Reported numbers remain low with possible lag in data
This story was updated 4:26 p.m. on Aug. 2, 2021, to reflect new heat-related death counts.
A 38-year-old mother of three was hiking along Middle Fork Road in Idaho City when she developed heat stroke on July 12. She was pronounced dead on the scene about 40 minutes after the emergency call, Boise County Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Johnson said.
A 78-year-old man in Caldwell died on his bed, dehydrated and attempting to cool himself. A piece of cloth was draped across his forehead, according to the Canyon County coroner’s report.
And an 89-year-old veteran in his Lewiston home died of cardiac arrest after prolonged exposure to heat. The house was 97 degrees indoors when the Nez Perce County coroner arrived, according to the report.
Coroners reports obtained by the Idaho Statesman paint a clearer picture of some of the heat-related deaths that occurred in Idaho when record-breaking temperatures hit the state beginning in late June.
The state had reported eight heat-related deaths as of noon on Monday, said Niki Forbing-Orr, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare spokesperson.
Three were people between the ages of 18 and 49. Six were white and two were Hispanic, according to DHW. Six of them were men.
At least three deaths were in Nez Perce County. Lewiston reached 115 degrees on June 30, according to the National Weather Service.
Heat-related deaths include those with heat stroke listed as the cause of death. But it can also include another primary cause, with heat, heat stroke, heat exhaustion, high temperatures or prolonged heat exposure as contributing to the death, Clark said.
Why Idaho’s heat-related death rate could be lower
Idaho’s population is smaller than neighboring states that have larger urban populations. But even looking at heat-related deaths per 100,000 people, Idaho’s rate is lower. While Idaho has so far confirmed eight deaths, Washington and Oregon officials have totaled more than 200 heat-related deaths combined since late June.
Public health, climate and sociology experts cited a few factors that could be playing into those numbers.
The National Weather Service in Lewiston, the area with the most heat-related deaths so far, recorded June temperatures at 9.3 degrees higher than the historical average, the largest recorded difference in the state.
Temperatures are directly linked with mortality rates — and even just a few degrees “can make a really big difference in the number of deaths,” said Kristie Ebi, professor in the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington.
In Boise, June temperatures were 8.1 degrees higher than the historical average.
“That is an enormous departure from normal,” said Jay Breidenbach, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Boise.
Boise also met the record of nine consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. It broke a daily record for July 6, when the temperature hit 107 degrees. Yet Boise so far hasn’t seen the reported heat-related deaths other cities in neighboring states have seen.
But infrastructure also plays an important role.
Katie Lee, associate professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Sociology at the University of Idaho, considered factors such as poverty rates, population and household infrastructure. She also pointed to the difference in average temperatures, which were far higher in Seattle and Portland than in Boise.
Lee said she suspects that Idaho’s infrastructure was better equipped to handle hotter temperatures. She pointed to the example of Portland’s public transit, which shut down because it wasn’t built to withstand temperatures higher than 110 degrees. More vulnerable populations then may not have been able to get to the cooling stations the city offered, Lee said.
“This heat dome for the Pacific Northwest, specifically (in) the coastal cities, was just so far different than what has been experienced previously,” Lee said. “Their infrastructure wasn’t capable of handling this heat.”
Lee also searched for average ages of homes in metropolitan cities. In Boise, the average home is 34 years old, according to BestPlaces.net — newer than homes in Portland, Seattle and Spokane, where the median home ages were over 50 and less likely to have central air conditioning.
Jeff Seegmiller is the University of Idaho’s director of the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) medical program — a regional partnership to educate University of Washington medical students from rural states. Seegmiller, also a licensed athletic trainer, said rates of homelessness may also factor into those numbers. Access to shelter reduces the chance of heat- or cold-related illnesses, he said.
Data collection on deaths a slow process, public health officials say
Western states have been grappling with an extreme heat wave and seen record-breaking high temperatures that are challenging water sources, energy grids and vulnerable workers.
Idaho’s current data is preliminary and found through the Bureau of Vital Health Statistics, which set up a monitoring system to search for key words in death records as they’re electronically submitted, Clark said. But information on the person’s death may be completed in stages, and it may not be clear until much later that heat contributed to a death.
The records are then sent to the National Center for Health Statistics, which processes the information and provides Idaho’s bureau with codes for underlying cause of death. Death certificates may vary on how and where the information is written, Clark said.
“It can take a long time for the cause of death to be certified on the death certificate,” Clark said. “In the meantime, in order to provide data on ‘heat-related deaths’ as quickly as possible, we have to rely on ... reviewing literal information as it is received.“
Public health experts are hesitant to take too much stock in the number of heat-related deaths this early.
Seegmiller said Idaho should be cautiously optimistic about its lower mortality rate. But officials and members of the public should continue to be diligent in looking for ways to prevent heat-related illnesses, especially among vulnerable populations, he said.
“Any time somebody dies of something that’s preventable, it should be concerning to us,” Seegmiller said. “We should pay attention to that.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
