Welcome to the Identify Heat-Related Vulnerabilities and Impacts module! There are a wide range of reasons why a person or community may be at greater risk of heat-related illness, injury, or death. For example, people unable to access cool spaces or afford air conditioning due to their economic status may experience greater risks.

To prioritize and implement projects and investments towards equitable outcomes, you should identify and connect with the populations in your jurisdiction that are at greater risk of heat-related impacts. This will also allow you to partner with these groups and take a community-led approach in your projects. In this module, you will define vulnerability in your context and subsequently map community groups that are most vulnerable to heat impacts based on geography or underlying social, economic and health characteristics.

This module can build on the outputs from the previous module, Conduct a Baseline Heat Risk Assessment.

All people are at risk of heat-related illness or death, but to varying extents. Many social, economic, and physiological factors affect a person or community’s risk of heat-related illness or death. These include age, caste/class, community cohesion, cultural norms, discrimination/marginalization, gender, income and wealth, language, profession, race, pre-existing health conditions, use of certain prescription drugs, and access to cool spaces and potable water.

Vulnerability assessments often analyze how temperature is distributed throughout an area (see Conduct a Baseline Heat Risk Assessment), age, income, and other factors such as access to cooling (cooling centers, tree canopy coverage, etc.) and energy burden.

Researchers often partner with governments to develop detailed heat vulnerability maps and future projections of where heat may have the worst impacts. Involving communities most impacted by heat (e.g., through a survey or participatory assessment process) can help ensure that your analysis is accurate and grounded in people’s lived experiences. When beginning a vulnerability assessment, consider the time and resources you have for outreach and communication to create a practical plan of action for community engagement.

Each jurisdiction faces unique heat-related challenges. Consider how geographic and climatic factors such as nearby coasts or mountain ranges impact your region. Population and economic factors are important as well. For example, one city may have many outdoor workers; another may have a tourist season, necessitating planning measures to protect non-residents; another may include many individuals who are currently or have been historically marginalized or harmed by racism and other forms of discrimination. Marginalization and discrimination can already be negatively impacting population health, access to resources, and trust in government, and this may be further exacerbated by extreme heat.

Temperatures can be reduced by water features or green spaces. However, areas with large parks or ponds are also popular to live in (and new development of these spaces is often directed toward wealthier communities), so low-income populations are often priced out or unable to move into the area to begin with, forcing them further away into hotter areas. Additionally, green spaces may not be accessible by all residents. For example, safety concerns or cultural factors can prevent women from accessing dense parks and forests by themselves.

Other factors that can contribute to a jurisdiction’s heat related challenges include community demographics, proximity to polluting resources and compounding hazards such as storms, floods, and droughts.

Vulnerability assessments that are rooted in engagement with heat-affected communities should guide your decision-making process throughout the project or planning process. Generally, who is vulnerable to heat, where they are located, and when they are most at risk should be made clear by the vulnerability assessment.

For example, Western Sydney, Australia conducted a series of workshops and interviews with stakeholders to understand who is most impacted by heat and how. This led to the realization that the urban heat island effect was a clear concern, and as a result, the city’s action plan prioritized reducing urban heat island impacts through the planning and design of new buildings. Using vulnerability assessments can build a clear and specific case for investing in protecting people’s health and livelihoods.

The way that you define vulnerability will define your metrics of success, and engagement with vulnerable populations should not end after the planning process. Community-centered or community-led efforts will be more likely to be sustainable and to succeed, as community members invest in the project and deliver critical feedback on what aspects are working and where improvements could be made.

A common challenge in producing a vulnerability assessment is a lack of community trust in government or outside researchers. Appropriate and thorough community engagement and time and resources to devote to the process are essential, but it is important to acknowledge that certain communities may not have been previously engaged in this type of assessment, leading to a lack of trust. Even if residents have previously been engaged in similar assessments, they may be reluctant to invest more time before seeing that their engagement is yielding results. Before approaching community members, work with community leaders and organizations to understand historical relationships and previous engagement efforts.

When developing a vulnerability map, there may or may not be underlying high quality data available (e.g., demographic data, temperature data) or the resources and capacity needed to collect or produce and leverage that data. Identifying partners with similar goals or research capacity can help fill this gap.