Reducing the health effects of hot weather and heat extremes: from personal cooling strategies to green cities

Heat extremes (ie, heatwaves) already have a serious impact on human health, with ageing, poverty, and chronic illnesses as aggravating factors. As the global community seeks to contend with even hotter weather in the future as a consequence of global climate change, there is a pressing need to bett...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Lancet (British edition) 2021-08, Vol.398 (10301), p.709-724
Main Authors: Jay, Ollie, Capon, Anthony, Berry, Peter, Broderick, Carolyn, de Dear, Richard, Havenith, George, Honda, Yasushi, Kovats, R Sari, Ma, Wei, Malik, Arunima, Morris, Nathan B, Nybo, Lars, Seneviratne, Sonia I, Vanos, Jennifer, Ebi, Kristie L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Aging
Air conditioning
Blackouts
Capital costs
Chronic illnesses
Climate change
Cooling
Electricity generation
Emissions
Extreme heat
Global climate
Heat
Heat waves
Hot weather
Human settlements
Personal cooling
Physiology
Poverty
Power
Refugees
Thermal environments
Weather
Weathering
Workplaces
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Summary:Heat extremes (ie, heatwaves) already have a serious impact on human health, with ageing, poverty, and chronic illnesses as aggravating factors. As the global community seeks to contend with even hotter weather in the future as a consequence of global climate change, there is a pressing need to better understand the most effective prevention and response measures that can be implemented, particularly in low-resource settings. In this Series paper, we describe how a future reliance on air conditioning is unsustainable and further marginalises the communities most vulnerable to the heat. We then show that a more holistic understanding of the thermal environment at the landscape and urban, building, and individual scales supports the identification of numerous sustainable opportunities to keep people cooler. We summarise the benefits (eg, effectiveness) and limitations of each identified cooling strategy, and recommend optimal interventions for settings such as aged care homes, slums, workplaces, mass gatherings, refugee camps, and playing sport. The integration of this information into well communicated heat action plans with robust surveillance and monitoring is essential for reducing the adverse health consequences of current and future extreme heat.
ISSN:0140-6736
1474-547X
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01209-5