COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The impact of heat on populations is sparking a new wave of public health research, according to Dr. Amir Sapkota, the chair of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
"Heat exposure kills a lot more people than other natural disasters combined," Sapkota said. "It kills lot more people, but we don't pay as much attention to it because it's not as shocking as a category four hurricane coming and decimating a neighborhood."
As an example, Sapkota cited the 2023 heat wave in Europe last summer that killed 50,000 to 85,000 people as a wake up call.
But much of the data can go unnoticed.
In the D.C. region The Center for American Progress analyzed public health data from Virginia between 2016 and 2020 and found:
- Almost 400 outpatient-care visits for heat-related illness
- Almost 7,000 additional emergency department visits, including more than 4,600 visits for heat-related illness
- Almost 2,000 additional heat-related hospital admissions, mostly for heat-adjacent illness
According to the study, nationally that would extrapolate to almost 235,000 emergency department visits and more than 56,000 hospital admissions for heat-related illness, adding approximately $1 billion in health care costs each summer. Additional costs fall on local governments, which must spend to open and staff cooling centers and respond with emergency services like EMS.
In Congress, the extreme heat act of 2023 failed, but would have formally recognized heat waves as a major disaster on par with a hurricane or winter storm, which would enable states to ask for FEMA assistance and seek reimbursement for emergency measures like cooling stations and welfare checks.
Sapkota and his collaborators are currently assessing the impact of heat events on patients undergoing kidney dialysis, who are particularly prone to heat related complications.
“These heat waves are more common, and when they do happen, they tend to last longer, and they are a lot nastier," Sapkota said.
In Maryland, the Health Department is reporting six heat deaths for 2024 so far. Four of those deaths occurred in Prince George’s County. There were nine heat deaths in Maryland for all of 2023.