Published 12/16/24, Written by Bob Proehl

Despite the danger and death toll of heat-related disasters in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has never declared a heat wave an emergency. The reason is twofold: a lack of real-time data on the impacts of extreme heat, and a lack of clarity on how to mitigate those impacts.

“When extreme heat events happen, they are acute emergency disasters,” says Dr. Amie Patchen, Lecturer and Chief of the Environment, Climate & Health Concentration for Cornell Public Health. “These disasters cause at least hundreds of deaths each year,” adds Dr. Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice. “More deaths annually than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined.”

These gaps in federal policy leave impacted communities without necessary resources, say Dr. Patchen and Dr. Hayden. To help address this, they collaborated to write a series of health policy memos—a tool used to translate evidence to influence policymakers—with recommendations on how to track and prevent extreme heat events, address extreme heat in schools, and incorporate heat events into disaster policy. Ideas put forward in their memos, published by the Federation of American Scientists, have already been turned into draft legislation, such as a recent bill to create new funding pathways for heat events.

Their work on extreme heat developed out of earlier research on wildfire smoke. Last summer, schools and communities in the U.S. found themselves unprepared to deal with the detrimental impacts of wildfires on air quality. Dr. Patchen and Dr. Hayden saw that extreme heat poses a similar threat; one that federal, state, and local governments were underprepared for.

Unless something is done, they realized, these trends will only get worse.

However, not all heat emergencies are identical, and what works in one instance might not work in another. “We needed to figure out what FEMA’s action should be on extreme heat,” says Dr. Hayden. To help develop strategies, Master of Public Health students, hired as Public Health Impact Fellows, studied existing action plans from other agencies and organizations, to determine what was already being done in instances of extreme heat. Combined with an understanding of FEMA’s capacity and resources in a federally declared emergency, the students were able to compile possible action plans for FEMA to combat and mitigate the public health impacts of extreme heat.

Addressing the impacts of extreme heat in schools is particularly important, notes Dr. Patchen, “since education is a big social determinant of health.” Research has shown that higher classroom temperatures can lead to lower test scores. For students in lower-income districts—where schools are less likely to have the infrastructure to deal with extreme heat—this leads to a disproportionate impact from heat waves.

“This is already affecting students in New York State,” says Dr. Patchen. “The extreme heat we had in June coincided with state testing week in New York schools. These are required tests that impact graduation for high school students, and not all kids took them in air conditioning.”

According to Dr. Hayden and Dr. Patchen, determining when it is too hot for students to be in schools, developing plans to provide support during closures, and addressing failures in infrastructure are all key to mitigating the negative effects of extreme heat. “Even though heat waves are acute events,” adds Patchen, “they can have long-standing, chronic impacts on the kids who were in school at that time.”

“The hazard of heat is not going away,” says Dr. Hayden, and he and Dr. Patchen will continue to help communities prepare.