Heat-Related Health Risk Assessment and Mitigation for Aging Populations in Public Housing: A Community-Individual Environment-Health Nexus

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PROJECT SUMMARY Although older adults in public housing face serious threats to their heat-related health, current assessment and mitigation frameworks neglect physiological conditions and place-based infrastructural and social inequalities. Our long-term goal is to develop quantifiable measures and dose-response relationships between the density and characteristics of urban green infrastructure (GI) and heat-related health outcomes for older adults, which can inform community planning and resilience policies that support aging in place during current and future climate conditions. Our objectives are to: 1) assess heat-related health risks for older adults in public housing neighborhoods; 2) determine the effects of green infrastructure on micrometeorological conditions and heat stress; and 3) evaluate the extent to which neighborhood GI mitigates heat-related health risks via emotional, cognitive, and social pathways. Our central hypothesis is that neighborhood GI characteristics are associated with a reduced risk of heat-related illness for older adults in public housing. To achieve Aim 1, we will perform heat-related health risk assessments using the population vulnerability framework, which integrates exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Biometeorological exposure will be evaluated based on a novel human heat stress model that accounts for the physiology of older adults; sensitivity and adaptivity will be assessed using social and infrastructural stressors. To achieve Aim 2, we will develop 3-dimensional measures of GI characteristics using remote sensing data and street-level imagery and video classifications and identify inter- and intra-neighborhood GI attributes that relate to micrometeorological parameters and heat stress in older adults. To achieve Aim 3, we will conduct a 2-wave panel survey with multi-stage sampling of older adults in public housing neighborhoods in Houston and Chicago. By comparing baseline measures collected in the spring wave with those during heat conditions in the summer wave, we will assess the sociopsychological pathways through which neighborhood GI is associated with heat-related health/behavioral outcomes and subjective well-being. The research proposed in this application is innovative because it develops heat-related health risk assessments that integrate a novel age-specific human heat- stress model. It also focuses on GI as a modifiable risk factor and adopts a socioecological perspective to elucidate the extent to which individuals’ interaction with their neighborhood’s green infrastructure can moderate heat-related health risks via emotional, cognitive, and social pathways. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to provide strong scientific justification for heat assessment and mitigation frameworks that clarifies the complex transactions between the community-level socioenvironmental infrastructure and an individual’s health. Ultimately, such knowledge has the potential to offer new public health and environmental planning policies that enhance community resilience and promote climate equity.