Following on from last winter, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences and Minami Nippon Broadcasting have begun issuing bathing alerts on the website of the Kagoshima University Department of Legal Medicine and on Minami Nippon Broadcasting's television and radio broadcasts. The extreme difference in temperature when bathing can cause blood pressure fluctuations that can lead to death, and the alerts will continue until the end of February 2025.
According to Kagoshima University, the bathing alerts are issued daily for 15 districts in Kagoshima Prefecture, including Kagoshima, Kanoya, Yakushima, Naze, and Tokunoshima, and the possibility of bathing deaths is classified into three categories: "Caution," "Caution," and "Danger." The classification is based on the predicted maximum and minimum temperatures for the day, the average temperature, and the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures.
Bathing death occurs when blood pressure fluctuates dramatically as a result of moving from a warm room to a cold changing room and then to a hot bathtub, causing death from stroke, ischemic heart disease, or fatal arrhythmia, or when a person loses consciousness and drowns after submerging in water.
Compared to other countries, Japanese people who bathe in hot bathtubs have a higher incidence of bathing deaths, but Kagoshima Prefecture has a higher incidence rate in the country, and the number of bathing deaths is estimated to be more than 2.8 times that of traffic accident deaths. Kagoshima University investigated approximately 2006 cases of bathing deaths that occurred in Kagoshima Prefecture between 2019 and 2,200, where the date of death could be identified, and identified the temperatures at which bathing deaths are more likely to occur.
Kagoshima University believes that bathing deaths are preventable, and that the number of bathing deaths can be significantly reduced by checking bathing alerts every day and refraining from bathing on days when bathing deaths are more likely to occur.
