Heat-Related Health Risk Assessment and Mitigation for Aging Populations in Public Housing: A Community-Individual Environment-Health Nexus

Texas A&M University, College Station TX

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Abstract

Although older adults in public housing face serious threats to their heat-related health, current heat assessment and risk prevention frameworks neglect physiological conditions and place-based differences in housing and green space characteristics. Our long-term goal is to develop quantifiable measures and doseresponse relationships between the density and characteristics of urban green infrastructure (GI), defined as green space and natural landscapes, and heat-related health outcomes for older adults, which can inform community planning and public health initiatives that support aging in place. Our objectives are to: 1) assess heat-related health risks for older adults in public housing neighborhoods; 2) determine the effects of GI on micrometeorological conditions and heat stress; and 3) evaluate the extent to which neighborhood GI mitigates heat-related health risks via emotional, cognitive, and social pathways. Our central hypothesis is that neighborhood GI characteristics are associated with a reduced risk of heat-related illness for older adults in public housing. To achieve Aim 1, we will perform heat-related health risk evaluations by combining information on biometeorological heat exposure, group characteristics, and heat coping abilities. Specifically, biometeorological heat exposure will be evaluated based on a novel human heat stress model that accounts for the physiology of older adults. To achieve Aim 2, we will develop 3-dimensional measures of GI characteristics using remote sensing data and street-level imagery and video classifications and identify interand intra-neighborhood GI attributes that relate to micrometeorological parameters and heat stress in older adults. To achieve Aim 3, we will conduct a 2-wave panel survey with multi-stage sampling of older adults in public housing neighborhoods in Houston and Chicago. By comparing baseline measures collected in the spring wave with those during heat conditions in the summer wave, we will assess the sociopsychological pathways through which neighborhood GI is associated with heat-related health and behavioral outcomes, and subjective well-being. The research proposed in this application is innovative because it develops heat-related health risk assessments that integrate a novel age-specific human heat-stress model. It also focuses on GI as a modifiable risk factor and adopts a socioecological perspective to elucidate the extent to which individuals’ interaction with their neighborhood’s GI can moderate heat-related health risks via emotional, cognitive, and social pathways. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to provide strong scientific justification for heat-related health assessment that clarifies the complex transactions between the communitylevel green space and an individual’s health. Ultimately, such knowledge has the potential to inform new public health initiatives that enhance the health and wellbeing of aging populations