Doctoral Dissertation Research: Enhancing Heat Risk Modeling for Spatially Targeted Interventions

Heat is a leading weather-related cause of deaths and illnesses globally, but most heat-related health outcomes are preventable. Policy-relevant targeted interventions based on hazard-specific vulnerability assessment can lead to improved disaster risk strategies. This project seeks to enhance heat vulnerability assessment for targeted responses to save lives and protect against preventable illnesses. The overriding research question is: how can hazard-specific, place-specific, and time-variant heat vulnerability representative variables enable spatially targeted interventions that are policy-relevant? The research is critical to advancing theories toward heat-specific and place-specific vulnerability representations. Heat vulnerability studies typically use general, all-hazard conceptual models that provide broad frameworks for understanding various types of hazards. However, general conceptualizations do not sufficiently promote tailored heat-specific strategies, undermining effective responses. This project investigates the decision criteria underpinning heat vulnerability including the selection of input variables, modeling approaches, statistical considerations, and geospatial science issues, toward the development and refining of consistent theories and conceptual frameworks that are heat-specific and place-specific. This project works to develop a generalizable approach for testing hypotheses and theoretical frameworks of heat vulnerability, which is crucial for instituting mitigative and adaptive protections against preventable health outcomes. Knowledge gained from this research can inform local and federal agencies in the coordinating, planning, and implementing of heat relief activities, toward enhancing community resilience. The study findings contribute a basis for nationwide or global heat response activities, such as the placement of hydration stations, cooling centers, and personal heat relief resources. 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.