Published on 01/09/2026 – 11:56 GMT+2
As rising temperatures take a toll on human health, air conditioning at home is about more than comfort. A recent study published on Monday in Nature Health found that it also saves thousands of lives.
Over 5,260 heat-related deaths are prevented every year in the US, reducing heat‑attributable mortality by more than half, according to a new study by the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale School of the Environment.
“Everyone agrees that air conditioning works, but knowing that it works for one person is not the same as knowing how much death it prevents across an entire population,” said Kai Chen, senior author of the study and an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, in a press release.
However, setting air conditioning to maximum does not necessarily save more lives, the study found. Maximum cooling offered no additional health benefits compared with average use, highlighting the need to balance health benefits against the environmental costs of excessive energy consumption and greenhouse‑gas emissions.
Lower‑income and heat
The researchers analysed nearly 30 million death records from 2010 to 2020, matching each death with the daily temperature in the county where it occurred. They then compared those patterns with estimates of household electricity consumption for cooling in each county.
The study focused on actual cooling use rather than air‑conditioning ownership, Chen noted. “Knowing whether a household has an air conditioner says little about whether residents can afford to run it, or how often they do so,” he said.
The findings shed light on how lower‑income households cope with extreme heat, said Narasimha Rao, a study co‑author and professor of energy systems at the Yale School of the Environment.
“While some choose to turn on their ACs, others make the uncomfortable choice of bearing the heat to save money for food,” Rao explained.
Moreover, the results could influence housing policy, said Robert Dubrow, a study co‑author and founding faculty director of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health.
“Landlords in the United States are required to provide heating in winter, and our study adds to a compelling body of literature indicating they should also be required to provide cooling in summer,” Dubrow remarked.
The study follows a political debate across the Atlantic, where European leaders grapple with air conditioning amid record‑breaking temperatures—France’s politicians have drawn ideological lines over cooling while the European Commission pushes a “holistic” strategy that emphasizes passive design, efficient cooling, and urban planning over mass installation of AC units.
