How does heat affect our health?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What effect will warming temperatures have on health? One place to look for answers is Bulgaria. In the summer of 2023, Bulgaria experienced numerous heatwaves, leading to the country experiencing one of the highest rates of heat mortality in Europe. But how are these numbers calculated? How exactly does heat affect us? Who is most likely to suffer from ill health due to heat? And how can we protect ourselves in an increasingly warming world? Along with a panel of experts, Claudia Hammond will explore these questions and more with a live audience at the Sofia Science Festival in Bulgaria. Are we prepared for how rising temperatures will affect our health? This programme aims to find out.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
0:05.0	My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC.
0:08.7	It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements.
0:14.8	Stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
0:19.1	And the BBC's position, at the heart of British music
0:21.7	means we can tell those stories like no one else.
0:24.4	We were, are and always will be right there at the centre of the narrative.
0:28.5	So whether you want an insightful take on music right now
0:31.3	or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music,
0:36.1	check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds.
0:43.7	Hello and welcome to the evidence from the BBC World Service. I'm Claudia Hammond,
0:49.1	and in this series we take a single health issue and we delve deep into the research behind it.
0:55.1	And we've come to the Sofia Science Festival in beautiful Sofia, Bulgaria, where I'm joined by a live audience.
1:02.6	Do say hello, audience.
1:05.5	Thank you for that.
1:06.7	Now, the weather has been really nice and sunny since I've been here.
1:10.0	It's been a lovely temperature because it's not too hot, but we have seen hundreds of air conditioning units on
1:16.3	the back of buildings, and I know that it actually can get very hot here in Bulgaria, to the
1:21.7	point that the country experienced the second highest number of deaths related to the heat in Europe in 2023. Only Greece had more.
1:31.1	Now, of all the extreme weather that we see, heat is the most deadly. In the US, for example,
1:36.8	it kills more people in an average year than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.
1:43.1	And it's not just in Europe and the US. As a result of climate change
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.