The Ministry of Health activates the National Plan of Preventive Actions against the Effects of Excessive Temperatures on Health

The Ministry of Health implements the National Plan of Preventive Actions on the Effects of Excessive Temperatures on health from Thursday 16 May. The aim of the National Plan is to prevent and mitigate the negative effects that excessive heat can have on the health of citizens, especially in the most at-risk or vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, pregnant women, children and people with chronic illnesses, as well as those groups who work or exercise outdoors.

One of the plan's priority actions is to warn the health authorities and the public sufficiently in advance of possible risk situations. To this end, the Ministry of Health will provide the Regional Governments with daily forecasts of maximum temperatures drawn up by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) as well as the levels of health risk due to high temperatures. This information will also be available to the public on the Ministry's website.

The Plan defines a health impact temperature threshold for each territorial area, above which a statistically significant relationship between mortality and heat has been observed.

Each day, the Ministry of Health establishes a daily risk level for each territorial area based on the difference between the temperatures predicted by AEMET for that day and the following two days and the health impact temperature threshold. There are four risk levels (level 0 (green), no risk, level 1 (yellow), low risk, level 2 (orange), medium risk and level 3 (red), high risk) according to which the Ministry and the Regional Governments take appropriate risk communication and prevention measures.

The main new item of the Plan in 2024 is the introduction of the Meteoalert Zone used by AEMET as the territorial level for extreme heat warnings, which complements the provincial level used in previous plans. The calculation of the new thresholds per Meteoalert Zone has been carried out by the Research Group on Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment, of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Extreme heat warnings at Meteoalert Zone level will be available from 3 June.

This information is updated daily on the Ministry of Health website. The public will also be able to subscribe until 30 September to a free service to receive the temperature forecast and the level of risk by e-mail and mobile phone for the province requested.

Non official translation