The Southwest has been experiencing a heat wave for several days. The heat wave is expected to extend into Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee this week and into the weekend, and parts of Georgia will experience temperatures in the mid to upper 90s this week.
How do heat waves affect health?
First, there is the main effect of being too hot. People who don’t have air conditioning, or who work or spend a lot of time outside, can have their body temperature go up too high. When the air temperature is hotter than body temperature, your body can’t cool off by sweating. It doesn’t work.
There are several kinds of heat illness including heat exhaustion, which is milder, and heat stroke, which is more dangerous and happens when your body temperature is over 103 degrees. Warning signs for both include dizziness, headache, and nausea. People with heat stroke have a temperature over 103 and can have red, dry skin (no sweating), confusion, or unconsciousness. For more information about heat illness and when to seek medical care, please see this CDC website.
Second, there is the effect of heat on people with chronic illnesses: people who have chronic illnesses are more at risk of dying. Because they are already sick, their body can’t adapt to the increased heat as well. During heat waves people also die from heart disease, lung disease, and strokes.
How does climate change affect heat waves?
As climate change gets more intense, cities and countries will have higher everyday temperatures. For cities in the Southeast, our summers will be hotter and longer. Climate change also means more and longer heat waves. It won’t take as much extra heat during a heat wave to put us into dangerous conditions, and heat waves will be more dangerous.
What can we do?
During a heatwave, stay cool. Drink cool drinks, wear light weight clothes, stay in air conditioned areas. If you are outside take frequent breaks in the shade and drink cold drinks. If you don’t have air conditioning, go somewhere that has air conditioning.
We can advocate for policies that reduce climate change (clean energy and clean transportation). We can advocate for policies that help reduce the energy burden for lower wealth people. There are many policies that can help reduce inequities in exposure, ability to afford air conditioning, and ability to seek medical care.
How does COVID complicate heat?
Most cities open cooling centers during a heat wave, where people can go be in air conditioned spaces if they don’t have it at home. The cooling centers serve our most vulnerable people, those who are lower wealth and can’t afford air conditioning.
With COVID, we are trying to avoid spaces with large numbers of people sitting close to each other. Yet that is exactly what a cooling center does – it puts people together in a large air conditioned space. So people without air conditioning are forced to choose: risk their lives by staying home in the heat, or risk their lives by going to a cooling center and being exposed to COVID. It is a terrible choice, and we need policies that make our country more equitable, and that reduce climate change.
In addition, hospitals and ICUs are already straining to handle the number of people sick with COVID. Adding more people who are suffering from heat illness or heart and lung conditions or strokes exacerbated by heat could be dire.
For more information about climate change and heatwaves, read this fact sheet from Climate Signals, a project of Climate Nexus.
