By Erin Jester
As extreme heat continues to be a pressing public health concern, Florida could look to India for ways to protect residents from heat-related hospitalizations, writes a University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions doctoral student in a new journal article.
Sarah Rodriguez, a first-year public health Ph.D. student in the social and behavioral sciences concentration, along with her collaborators from Florida International University, where she received her Master of Public Health, compared long-term temperature trends in South Florida and major cities in India. They then examined the relationship between rising temperatures and heat-related hospitalizations in South Florida. In their findings, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in August, the authors recommended public health agencies in South Florida draw on India’s experience with extreme heat and borrow some of the country’s proactive strategies for preventing heat-related illness.
India’s baseline high temperatures, high population density and public health infrastructure vulnerabilities have created a high prevalence of heat-related morbidity and mortality, with substantial increases in heat-related hospitalizations over the last few decades.
South Florida has historically been somewhat buffered by its coastal climate, but consecutive years of record-breaking high temperatures and nearly year-round high humidity have occurred alongside an increase in heat-related hospitalizations.
Although the study focused on Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, “All of Florida is dealing with extreme heat right now,” Rodriguez said. “The need to have interventions in place is close to home.”
While the U.S. has more financial resources than India, response to extreme heat events tends to be reactive to heat risk rather than proactive, she said. Getting ahead of heat-related hospitalizations and deaths would require more surveillance and coordination among agencies.
The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan, implemented after a 2010 heat wave in western India caused more than 1,300 excess deaths, was a coordinated effort among the local government, the Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinagar and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It became the first municipal plan to reduce the health impact of extreme heat on vulnerable populations in South Asia.
The plan is updated annually and has become a framework for the implementation, coordination and evaluation of extreme heat responses in India. Key components include community outreach to create awareness about the health risks of extreme heat, an early-warning system to alert residents of predicted extreme temperatures, training healthcare professionals to more effectively recognize and respond to heat-related illnesses, and launching adaptive measures, such as retrofitting buildings with cooling technology and increasing the city’s green cover.
The plan places a special focus on construction and other outdoor workers, children and older adults, who tend to have higher risk for hospitalization due to heat-related illness.
Outreach and occupational protections for construction, roofing, landscaping, agricultural and other outdoor workers would be particularly meaningful in South Florida, where the combination of high average temperatures and high relative humidity can push the heat index into dangerous territory for nearly half the year and can place workers at increased risk for heat-related illness.
“Most outdoor workers in South Florida are doing essential work,” Rodriguez said. “There is a real need to have those protections in place.”