Mortality Effects of Temperature: Evidence from the Netherlands

I estimate the relationship between temperatures and mortality using daily data from the Netherlands between 1995 and 2014. The mortality effect of a day with an extremely high or extremely low average temperature accumulates over the following days. The largest mortality effect is found for a mildly cold day between -3◦C and 0◦C, which increases the mortality rate by 0.74 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Extreme heat with average daily temperature above 21◦C results in an additional 0.40 deaths per 100,000. The mortality effect of cold is significantly larger than the effect of heat. Impacts on the general population are driven by effects on elderly, and I find that elderly females are significantly less vulnerable to cold than males of a similar age.