HeatSmart: Integrating Community Impact, Interventions, and Policy for Heat Resilience

Extreme heat is a major deadly climate hazard and is projected to increase in frequency, duration, and intensity. The majority of heat-related morbidity and mortality occurs indoors, especially in higher-income countries. Policy regulating the maximum indoor temperature is an effective way to improve health, accelerate decarbonization efforts, and address social and structural inequities. Policy efforts in California, New York City, and Montreal, Canada have faced significant barriers in adoption, primarily due to implementation costs, upgrading old housing stock, and ensuring equitable solutions for rental properties. Through this proposal, we will translate evidence into action by conducting research focused on these barriers, which will form the foundation of a generalizable policy toolkit to support efforts of community-collaborative policy partnerships in the three target settings. Outputs from this proposal include: 1. Health Impact Estimation: We will quantify health effects from extreme heat mediated by indoor temperature. 2. Effectiveness and Cost-Benefit Modeling: We will estimate the health and cost benefits of multiple housing and structural mitigation strategies to identify which ones to target for policy action. 3. Policy Toolkit: Leveraging our community-partnered network, we will iteratively develop a toolkit to address barriers and provide actionable recommendations for indoor temperature regulations.