Climate-Related Health Impacts

In collaboration with the Louisiana Department of Health, SCIPP has completed several projects regarding heat-related health impacts across the state. These projects include:

• Research on the potential thresholds that trigger emergency room visits among different groups
• The development of a report titled, “Heat-Related Emergency Department Visits in Louisiana: Review of Syndromic Surveillance Data for April through October 2023,” and creation of a heat-related illness dashboard
• An analysis of heat-related health impacts and their relationship with temperature, heat index, and wet-bulb globe temperature (see “Assessing and Promoting Heat Stress through Wet Bulb Globe Temperature” for more information)

Oklahoma City was one of several cities selected to participate in NOAA’s Urban Heat Island Mapping Campaign. This campaign sought to create a better understanding of how air quality and heat is distributed throughout the city, and from this campaign, the areas most vulnerable to extreme heat and poor air quality were identified and prioritized.

SCIPP contributed to the campaign by presenting an historical analysis of heat in OKC to campaign organizers and partners. SCIPP also provided feedback at various meetings and participated in an engagement workshop hosted by the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) that discussed potential heat mitigation measures during the summer of 2024.

More information about the campaign, including the results and takeaways, can be found in Heat Mitigation & Adaptation Guidebook – Strategies for Oklahoma City and on the City of Oklahoma City’s website.

This project has two goals. The first is to develop an estimated national WBGT climatology. The second is to determine if there is a relationship between WBGT and hospitalizations and emergency department visits in Louisiana. The first goal will be accomplished by calculating estimated WBGT, utilizing gridded data sets, such as ERA5-Land (Muñoz Sabater 2019), for the U.S. between 1990 and 2020. Additional analyses will include descriptive statistics, trend analyses, and data visualizations. The second goal will utilize the estimated WBGT alongside parish-level data from the Louisiana Department of Health. Statistical analyses of the relationship between WBGT and health data will include correlation, regression, and spatial analysis techniques, when applicable.