Intra-urban vulnerability to heat-related mortality in New York City, 1997–2006

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Health Place
• Personal Author:
  Rosenthal, Joyce Klein ; Kinney, Patrick L. ; Metzger, Kristina B.
• Description:
  The health impacts of exposure to summertime heat are a significant problem in New York City (NYC) and for many cities and are expected to increase with a warming climate. Most studies on heat-related mortality have examined risk factors at the municipal or regional scale and may have missed the intra-urban variation of vulnerability that might inform prevention strategies. We evaluated whether place-based characteristics (socioeconomic/demographic and health factors, as well as the built and biophysical environment) may be associated with greater risk of heat-related mortality for seniors during heat events in NYC. As a measure of relative vulnerability to heat, we used the natural cause mortality rate ratio among those aged 65 and over (MRR65+), comparing extremely hot days (maximum heat index 100°F+) to all warm season days, across 1997-2006 for NYC's 59 Community Districts and 42 United Hospital Fund neighborhoods. Significant positive associations were found between the MRR65+ and neighborhood-level characteristics: poverty, poor housing conditions, lower rates of access to air-conditioning, impervious land cover, surface temperatures aggregated to the area-level, and seniors' hypertension. Percent Black/African American and household poverty were strong negative predictors of seniors' air conditioning access in multivariate regression analysis.
• Subjects:
  Aged Article Databases, Factual Female Health Status Disparities Heat Exhaustion Humans Male Models, Statistical Mortality Vulnerable Populations

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• Source:
  Health Place. 2014; 30:45-60.
• Pubmed ID:
  25199872
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4348023
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  P30 ES009089/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/United States ; U36 CD300430/CD/ODCDC CDC HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  New York City, NY
• Volume:
  30
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3b72c76acdadcc32bf1cb9bb597a985f01fcaf981d0311ffca27f3f8dde77d17
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/42026/cdc_42026_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.74 MB ]