Climate change, heat and health in U.S. cities: Research and action to protect the vulnerable

This presentation will describe a new partnership between the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the non-profit ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability Cities for Climate Protection (CCP). The goal is to better understand health consequences of climate change and variability by studying heat and daily hospital admissions among elderly people in 100 U.S. cities during 1985-2003; evaluating individual and community determinants of vulnerability; and estimating economic impacts. Exposure to heat will be estimated from outdoor temperature monitors, and air pollution will be considered as a potential confounder and/or modifier of heat effects. The hospital data are billing records from Medicare beneficiaries, and individual characteristics that we hypothesize may influence their vulnerability to heat include co-morbid conditions (diabetes; cardiovascular, respiratory, renal disease; overall frailty) and individual characteristics (race, gender and age). CCP members are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and minimizing urban heat islands in their communities, and results from a survey they are conducting of community characteristics and existing local government preventive programs will be presented and analyses of how they affect vulnerability to heat events described. Other community features we will describe include greenspace from satellite data; demographic characteristics from Census data; and heat-relevant housing characteristics, including air-conditioning, from the American Housing Survey. We will also discuss our plans to evaluate economic impacts into the future, under different climate change scenarios and adaptive/mitigative strategies, and to disseminate results to city officials to foster and inform preventive actions and policies.