Peter Braun’s Post

"Hotter, less resourced neighborhoods experience more heat-related health emergencies like heat stroke and heat exhaustion." 🔥 Our paper "A Heat Emergency: Urban Heat Exposure and Access to Refuge in Richmond, VA" (link below) was just published in the American Geophysical Union's journal AGU GeoHealth! We looked at the locations of heat-related illness EMS response locations in the City of Richmond over a six-year period, the locations of urban heat islands, and cooling resources available to the public and found: - Heat-related health emergencies are inequitably distributed in Richmond, VA. Black residents, people age 50+, males, and people experiencing homelessness were disproportionately impacted by heat related illnesses. - Many of the heat-related illnesses in the study period occurred within a short walking distance of cooling centers and in close proximity to unsheltered bus stops. While spending time at a cooling center can help individuals avoid heat exposure, many people may not have a safe way to access these resources (no sidewalks, bus shelters, or shade from trees) or may not be aware cooling centers are available. - When mapped, heat-related illnesses were correlated with maps of both air temperature and land surface temperature, demonstrating the impact of urban heat on health outcomes. At the same time, mapping out where heat-related illnesses occur in our community shows that urban heat exposure has an impact on people's lives in our community today. - While we connect more people to cooling resources, we also need human-scale, community-led interventions to cool Richmond's hottest neighborhoods. 📖 You can read the full, open-access paper for free here: https://lnkd.in/eHktXmA8 🙏 Many thanks to my co-authors Todd Lookingbill, Elizabeth Zizzamia, Jeremy Hoffman, Ph.D., Jessica Rosner, MPH, and Daisy K Banta.