Abstract

Urban Heat Island, Emergency Public Health Services Spatially Measuring EMS
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Andrew Pappas

Urban heat islands impact the way in which public health clinicians and emergencymedical services prepare metropolitan communities for long-duration heat events. Municipal public health departments engage in mitigation strategies to lower the prevalence of heatrelated morbidity and mortality by providing targeted educational and intervention campaigns. By measuring the land surface temperature through satellite spectral imagery and geo-locating emergency medical service runs, a geospatial regression can be used to understand how urban populations react to extreme heat and what areas are at increased risk for heat relatedillness. Using Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana as a study location Landsat satellite spectral data was imported to ArcGIS 10 and merged to United States Census boundaries. Controlling for population density in tracts, an expected 1.6°F increase in temperature tracts for the period would have an expected doubling of emergency medical service runs for excessive heat exposure.