Heatwaves have a significant impact on public health as they can lead to increased mortality. The most vulnerable groups include elderly individuals and patients with chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, mental disorders, diabetes, and obesity. An analysis of the association between heatwaves and increased or decreased mortality (time series from 2020 to 2022) was conducted based on diagnoses (all causes, cardiovascular diseases), gender, and age group (all age groups and those aged 75 and older). The results were analyzed for three climatic regions in Slovenia: continental climate, transitional climate, and Mediterranean climate.
In the continental climate region, the analysis revealed a statistically significant increase in mortality during heatwaves, particularly for all causes of death and among males for all causes of death. For the transitional and Mediterranean climate regions, the time series did not show a statistically significant increase or decrease in mortality during heatwaves for any of the studied variables.