Letters

Published: 12/02/2004, Volume II4, No. Page 5892 23

In John Appleby's Data Briefing on winter mortality (page 25, 29 January), he correctly states that deaths from all causes increase in a linear fashion as temperatures fall below 18 oC. However, the overall relationship of deaths with temperature is more Ushaped, with increases in deaths at both extremes of temperature.

There are excess deaths in summer during periods of heatwaves. This was tragically illustrated during last August's heatwave in France, when around 10,000 excess deaths occurred.

Furthermore, if the Office of National Statistics changes the way of calculating excess winter deaths by comparing them only to summer deaths, the effect will be less marked (as shown in table 4) because the summer calculation is likely to include some excess summer deaths.

Dr Marie McDevitt Public health specialist, Huddersfield Central and South primary care trusts