NE1 - Vulnerability of the elderly

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case: NE1 location: Nordic region sectors: Health

General description

The elderly population (aged 65 and older), which is growing rapidly across the Nordic region, includes many individuals who are potentially vulnerable to the impacts of severe weather events such as heatwaves, cold spells, storms and floods.

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This case study aims to explore alternative approaches for describing and mapping vulnerability of the elderly to future changes in frequency or intensity of such events at the municipal scale across the Nordic region. It is primarily targeted at care givers and planners working at regional and national scale.

The project is a continuation of the CARAVAN1, 2 study.

1 SYKE's partners in the CARAVAN study were Karen O'Brien, Lynn Rosentrater, Ida Skivenes and Cathrine Ruud, Department of Sociology and Human Geography University of Oslo P.O. Box 1096, Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway, and Louise Simonsson, Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, Linköping University, 601 74 Norrköping, Sweden.

2 CARAVAN (Climate change: a regional assessment of vulnerability and adaptive capacity for the Nordic countries) was a two-year collaborative project (2008-2010) funded from national sources in the Nordic-Call of the EU CIRCLE (Climate Impact Research Coordination for a Larger Europe) ERA-Net project. It is being extended in MEDIATION to explore, in more detail, the vulnerability of the elderly to climate change in the Nordic region.

Initial knowledge

  • Heat-waves and other extreme weather events such as flooding are projected to become more frequent in the Nordic countries.
  • Elderly people are especially vulnerable to a range of weather-related hazards such as heat-waves. For instance, excess mortality among the elderly can be significant during heat-wave events