Overview:

Summary: Heat-related deaths are often undercounted or misclassified under the health conditions or incidents that lead to mortality despite being exacerbated by extreme heat. Accurately tracking heat-related deaths is an important metric to prevent future fatalities and implement effective mitigation measures. Governments can identify heat-related deaths more accurately by requiring first responders to take note of environmental conditions and body temperature and creating a centralized system to manage the data.

Implementation: Set reporting conditions or updated definitions to ensure that heat-related deaths are accounted for.

Considerations for Use: Many heat deaths are currently underreported because of complications in reporting preexisting conditions or lack of knowledge. Training and education will be an important part of implementation.

• Policy Levers:
  
  
  MandateMandates are government regulations that require stakeholders to meet standards through building codes, ordinances, zoning policies, or other regulatory tools.
• Trigger Points:
  
  
  No-regrets actions (low cost/low effort but substantial benefit)Interventions that are relatively low-cost and low effort (in terms of requisite dependencies) but have substantial environmental and/or social benefits.
• Intervention Type:
  Planning/Policy
• Sectors:
  Disaster Risk Management  , Informal Settlements, Information and Technology, Public Health

Impact:

• Target Beneficiaries:
  Heat-vulnerable communities, Residents
• Phase of Impact:
  Emergency response and management
• Metrics:
  Decrease in heat-related deaths

Case Studies:

• California Heat Death Tracking

Implementation:

• Intervention Scale:
  City, State/Province
• Authority and Governance:
  City government, State government
• Implementation Timeline:
  Short-term (1-2 Years)
• Implementation Stakeholders:
  City government, State/provincial government
• Funding Sources:
  Public investment
• Capacity to Act:
  High, Medium

Benefits:

• Cost-Benefit:
  Low
• Public Good:
  High
• GHG Reduction:
  N/A
• Co-benefits (Climate/Environmental):
  N/A
• Co-benefits (Social):
  Build community capacity, Improve human health