Heat and Cold Deaths Are Rising Faster for Less Educated Americans

Chart of the Day: New Study Links Lower Education Levels to Rising Climate-Related Deaths

June 2, 2026

By:

Joanna Kim, MPH

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More people have been dying due to severe heat and cold in the U.S. The health impacts of extreme weather are not equally distributed: racial differences have already been found in analyses of heat- and cold-related deaths. And climate change is expected to produce more extreme temperatures.

A new study by LDI Senior Fellow Sameed Khatana and his colleague found that deaths from extreme heat and cold in the U.S. affected people with lower levels of education more than those with higher education from 2010 to 2023.

The chart depicts heat and cold-related deaths in the U.S. by educational attainment, a proxy for socioeconomic status (SES), and shows how the gap between people with higher and lower levels of education grew over time.

Among people with a high school education or less, heat-related death rates rose from 0.5 to 1.8 deaths per 100,000 people. In the same population, the cold-related death rate also rose from 1.0 to 1.8 deaths per 100,000.

For those with more than a college education, heat-related death rates only increased from 0.1 to 0.2 deaths per 100,000, while cold-related death rates fell from 0.4 to 0.3 deaths per 100,000.

“The trends demonstrate the strong link between an important surrogate of SES and vulnerability to temperature-related deaths,” Khatana said.

See also another recent study which found that lower educational attainment is linked to cardiovascular deaths- underscoring education as a notable proxy for SES.

The study, “Trends in Temperature-Related Deaths by Educational Attainment in the United States, 2010–2023” was published March 27, 2026 in Preventive Medicine by Jonathan Szeto and Sameed Khatana.