RAPID: Responding to extreme heat in the time of COVID-19

应对2019冠状病毒病大流行期间的极端高温条件可能会使许多脆弱人群在温暖的夏季面临进一步的风险，因为许多人离开房屋以躲避炎热，并前往冷却中心和其他公共场所。人们的脆弱性可能会随着时间和空间的变化而变化，随着暴露于极端高温的程度，政策和社区反应的差异以及COVID-19的疾病压力而变化。通过评估经验，风险认知，行为和感知能力，以应对这些条件，调查人员将提高人们如何科普和适应多种不断变化的危险的理解。该项目将有助于更广泛地努力了解和减少全球大流行病期间极端天气事件对人口健康的风险。该项目的研究结果将广泛传播给研究人员、公共卫生和应急管理从业者以及公众。该项目汇集了来自地理学和行为科学的理论和方法，以开发有关人，环境和多种不断变化的危害之间相互作用的新知识。该研究将建立在现有的理论基础和经验知识的基础上，并将研究极端天气条件，COVID-19，当地政策以及环境和社会人口特征如何影响公众的风险认知，行为和采取保护措施的能力。研究人员将进行一系列地理参考的全国代表性调查，并结合空间显式建模，其中包括有关COVID-19和极端高温风险感知和体验的问题，自我报告的热应激和COVID-19症状，家庭应对能力，自我效能以及为减少脆弱性而采取的保护行为。该项目的研究结果将为风险沟通和公共卫生干预策略提供信息，旨在减少极端高温和COVID-19相关的影响，这些影响可以推广到其他多种灾害事件。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Responding to extreme heat conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic could place many vulnerable populations at further risk during the warm summer months when many people leave their houses to escape the heat and visit cooling centers and other public spaces. People’s vulnerability is likely to vary over time and space, shifting with the extent of exposure to extreme heat, differences in policy and community response, and disease pressure from COVID-19. By assessing experiences, risk perceptions, behaviors, and perceived ability to respond to these conditions, the investigators will improve the understanding of how people cope with and adapt to multiple evolving hazards. The project will contribute to broader efforts to understand and reduce population health risks from extreme weather events during a global pandemic. The project’s findings will be broadly disseminated to researchers, public health and emergency management practitioners, and the public. This project brings together theory and methods from geography and behavioral sciences to develop new knowledge about the interactions among people, their environment, and multiple evolving hazards. This research will build on existing theoretical foundations and empirical knowledge and will examine how extreme weather conditions, COVID-19, local policies, and environmental and socio-demographic characteristics affect the public’s risk perceptions, behaviors, and ability to take protective measures. The investigators will conduct a series of georeferenced nationally representative surveys combined with spatially explicit modeling with questions about COVID-19 and extreme heat risk perceptions and experiences, self-reported symptoms of heat stress and COVID-19, household coping capacity, self-efficacy, and protective behaviors undertaken to reduce vulnerability. The project findings will inform risk communication and public health intervention strategies aimed at reducing extreme heat and COVID-19-related impacts that can be generalized for other multi-hazard events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.