05/25/2021

Heat and Smog Exposure Impact Low-income and People of Color Hardest

Study co-authors didn’t expect the disparities to be this systematic

As the world warms due to climate change, two studies released this week show that heat exposure and related health issues are already having an inordinate impact on people of color and low-income communities.

One study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that in all but six of the largest 175 U.S. cities it examined, people of color had higher exposures to heat than White residents. T.C. Chakraborty, co-author of the study, said, “we didn’t expect the disparities to be this systematic.”

Another study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), analyzed hospitalization data in California during days where heat waves coincided with elevated pollution levels. The study found that the lower a ZIP code’s median income, the higher the chance of hospitalization for unscheduled respiratory issues on those days.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.