For Immediate Release From President Joseph Biden!
Millions of Americans will experience severe heat this week, with some cities already seeing temperatures over 100.
Check on your neighbors, listen to your local officials, and stay hydrated.
Learn more at
http://Heat.gov. ********
Welcome to HEAT.gov
Heat related illnesses and death are largely preventable with proper planning, education, and action. Heat.gov serves as the premier source of heat and health information for the nation to reduce the health, economic, and infrastructural impacts of extreme heat.
Heat.gov is the web portal for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS)
Who Is Most At Risk To Extreme Heat?
Extreme temperatures associated with heat waves can make everyone uncomfortable. When combined with conditions such as high humidity, sun exposure, stagnant air, and poor air quality, high temperatures can also become a health concern. Some groups face a greater risk of heat-related illness than others. For instance, outdoor workers and athletes are at greater risk than office workers because they have increased exposure to heat. Other groups may be disproportionately affected by the effects of high heat as a result of age or poor health, or the lack of resources that enable them to adapt or recover. Identifying specific factors that increase risk for some populations gives us a way to reduce exposure and vulnerability through adaptive actions. In some cases, simply increasing awareness of the risks that extreme heat poses to health can encourage people to take adaptive actions, such as going indoors or getting to a cooling center.
Groups most at risk to heat include, but are not limited to: children, older adults, people experiencing homelessness, people with pre-existing conditions, people with disabilities, indoor and outdoor workers, emergency responders, incarcerated people, low income communities, pregnant people, athletes, and more.
This page will be continually updated to correspond with the NIHHIS “Overlooked and Overburdened’ webinar series.
Children
As dependents, children rely on others to keep them safe, and some may not have the resources or knowledge to protect themselves from extreme heat. Children spend a good portion of their time in schools or day care settings, some of which may lack air conditioning.
Children are less efficient thermoregulators than adults; they have a smaller cardiovascular output and a higher metabolic rate than adults, which can increase vulnerability.1 Additionally, children often play outside in structured and unstructured activities. This exposes them to some of the same risks as outdoor workers and athletes experience (see below).
Prevention is the best defense in addressing extreme heat.
As much as you can, keep children out of direct sun.
Move outdoor activities to the morning and evening rather than middle of the day.
Stay hydrated, wear loose and light clothing, and practice sun safety (including wearing sunscreen).
Additionally, never leave children alone in a parked car – temperatures inside a car can rise 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, even with an open window. Make it a habit to check your entire vehicle — especially the back seat — before locking the doors and walking away. Store car keys out of a child's reach and teach children that a vehicle is not a play area. Always lock your car doors, year-round, so children can’t get into unattended vehicles. Over the past 25 years, more than 950 children have died of heatstroke, because they were left or became trapped in a hot car. It’s important for everyone to understand that children are more vulnerable to heatstroke and that all hot car deaths are preventable. For additional information, visit NHTSA’s website on hot car death prevention.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides information to understand why children are a population of focus, where children are experiencing adverse health outcomes as a result of extreme heat (National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network), and how to reduce their risk (Extreme Heat Prevention Guide). These tools describe health outcomes of children in every state over many years, facilitating comparisons and further analysis.
Athletes
Athletes are at risk of heat illness due to the combination of exposure, exertion, and, in some cases, wearing protective gear that traps heat. Outdoor activity exposes athletes to high temperatures, and conditions can be exacerbated by direct sunlight and/or poor air quality. Decision makers can use common tools to check current and future forecast air temperatures (NWS Graphical Forecasts), solar exposure (the opposite of cloud cover), and air quality (AirNow Air Quality Forecast), and factor those conditions into decisions about where and when to conduct practices and competitions.
As athletes are expected to push themselves physically, the line between acceptable levels of exertion and dangerous levels of exertion during heat may be blurred. CDC's guide on Recognizing, Preventing, and Treating Heat-Related Illness can be useful in protecting athletes from heat.
A range of organizations offer information about the risk heat poses to athletes. While many athletes have suffered from complications due to overheating, the death of Korey Stringer, who was participating in a National Football League training camp in 2001 when he suffered heat stroke, led to the creation of an eponymous institute at the University of Connecticut for the prevention of such deaths in the future. This is one organization that conducts research and issues guidance for the prevention of heat-related morbidity and mortality in athletes.
Biden-Harris Administration invests $4.55 million for community heat resilience through Investing in America agenda
Centers of excellence will support community-led heat resilience evaluation and strategies
These funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in history, will allow the federal interagency National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) to enhance community science observations and data collection on extreme heat, and provide assistance to communities planning for and evaluating equitable heat resilience projects. The centers will work alongside community members and community-based organizations to advance place-based heat information and decision-making, so they can reduce heat-related illness and death, harmful infrastructure impacts and other heat risks.
“The impacts of extreme heat caused by climate change are an increasing threat to our health, ecosystems and economy,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Thanks to President Biden’s ambitious climate agenda, this investment will support new NIHHIS Centers of Excellence to help protect historically excluded communities from the dangers of extreme heat, boost climate resilience and increase awareness on best practices to tackle the climate crisis.”
Learn more HERE!:
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/biden-ha... VISIT: HEAT.gov
Posted By: agnes levine
Tuesday, June 18th 2024 at 6:18PM
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