The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on August 14 a National Heat Strategy for 2024–2030 that aims to promote proactive coordination among federal agencies related to heat planning, response and resilience in the face of climate change.
The federal departments and agencies under the Biden-Harris administration involved in developing this strategy acknowledged the impact of heat on the health and well-being of humans, animals, and ecosystems, as well as associated economic and societal consequences. Roughly 1,220 people are killed by extreme heat in the U.S. every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), making heat the leading weather-related killer in the U.S.
“Extreme heat is not just an environmental crisis; it’s a serious threat to our public health – and communities across the country are struggling to respond,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “What we’re facing today wasn’t what we were experiencing 30 or 40 years ago. This is a different world we are in.”
“The National Heat Strategy recognizes the growing threat of heat, especially on vulnerable populations,” Becerra continued. “The federal government is taking steps to build a heat-resilient future for our entire country, from helping families get air conditioners to protecting farmworkers from heat events and unsafe air. Every action we take, and every dollar invested in prevention, preparation and heat health resilience, is a vital step towards ensuring a healthier and safer future for all.”
The strategy builds on the continuing efforts of 29 federal departments and agencies within the federal interagency National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), led by the CDC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Heat stress related to climate change has become a global problem, noted Yosr Allouche, incoming Director General of the IIR (International Institute of Refrigeration), in a presentation at the 16th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants. For example, NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) rated the summer of 2023 the hottest since 2023. According to the journal Nature, 62,000 deaths in Europe were caused by extreme heat in 2022. In addition, India, with a population of 1.4 billion, could become one of the first places in the world to experience heat waves that cross the survivability limit, according to ICAP (the International Carbon Action Partnership).
HHS is already taking steps to achieve the objectives outlined in the National Heat Strategy. Resources to address extreme heat from HHS and other federal partners include:
- The experimental HeatRisk tool from the CDC, in partnership with NOAA’s National Weather Service, which provides a seven-day heat forecast nationwide that tells users when temperatures may reach levels that could harm human health. Pulling data from the HeatRisk tool, the CDC developed a HeatRisk dashboard, a user-friendly webpage where people can enter their ZIP code and get personalized heat forecast information for their location, including information on local air quality, alongside protective actions to take.
- Clinical Guidance on Heat and Health from the CDC, developed for clinicians, which takes a patient-centered approach to protecting at-risk individuals when temperatures rise, including children with asthma, pregnant women and people with cardiovascular disease. These materials also feature user-friendly resources so the public can take action to keep themselves safe from heat. This resource complements the OCCHE’s Protecting Vulnerable Patient Populations from Climate Hazards, a tool that offers providers clinical guidance to address a broader set of climate-related risks, including wildfire smoke and high-powered storms.
- A new Heat and Health Index (HHI) tool, launched by the OCCHE and CDC to provide ZIP code-level heat-related illness and community characteristics data to measure vulnerability to heat nationwide. The HHI delivers a percentile ranking for each ZIP code so that public health officials, city planners, policymakers and community members can identify areas that may be at increased risk of negative health outcomes from heat. It also details local factors that may be driving this risk, which can help inform interventions to protect public health and build a more heat-resilient future.
- An updated version of the EMS HeatTracker , launched last year by the OCCHE and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which tracks emergency medical services’ responses to heat-related emergencies. This tracker can be used by communities to assess the burden of heat-related illness on local and regional EMS offices and provides near real-time information on where individuals across the country are being adversely affected by heat. This tool builds on efforts started by the CDC Heat and Health Tracker, which shows daily rates of emergency department visits associated with heat-related illness by HHS region.
- An updated Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Cooling Season Toolkit that provides more information about cooling assistance from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a program associated with the whole-of-government Justice40 Initiative that aims to deliver 40% of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate change, clean energy, clean transportation, affordable housing, water infrastructure, workforce development and pollution remediation to disadvantaged communities.
- An updated version of the ACF LIHEAP Heat Stress Dashboard, a tool to help LIHEAP-funded grant recipients mitigate the impact of heat stress on vulnerable populations. The Dashboard provides an overview of extreme heat, describes how extreme heat impacts health and well-being and supplies information on how LIHEAP funding can be used to address extreme heat.
- A new Building Blocks for a Heat Stress Prevention Training Program from the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Worker Training Program, which helps users identify and implement steps needed to reduce the risk of heat stress for workers in both indoor and outdoor environments.
- A new Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) Disaster Technical Assistance Center Supplemental Research Bulletin on Climate Change, coupled with expanded access to the Disaster Distress Helpline for extreme heat emergencies from SAMHSA and partner federal agencies with relevant language being added to Heat.gov. (SAMHSA’s Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH) provides 24/7 crisis counseling and emotional support for anyone in the U.S./territories experiencing distress or other mental health concerns related to disaster, including extreme heat events. Call or text 1-800-985-5990; press “2” for Spanish.)
More information on the National Heat Strategy is available here.
“What we’re facing today wasn’t what we were experiencing 30 or 40 years ago. This is a different world we are in.”
Xavier Becerra, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
