Developing a Healthy Environment Assessment Tool (HEAT) to Address Heat-Health Vulnerability in South African Towns in a Warming World.

ABSTRACT: Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can cause heat-related illnesses and accelerate death, especially in the elderly. We developed a locally-appropriate Healthy Environment Assessment Tool, or 'HEAT' tool, to assess heat-health risks among communities. HEAT was co-developed with stakeholders and practitioners/professionals from the Rustenburg Local Municipality (RLM), a setting in which heat was identified as a risk in an earlier study. Feedback was used to identify vulnerable groups and settings in RLM, consider opportunities and barriers for interventions, and conceptualize a heat-health vulnerability assessment tool for a heat-resilient town. Using information provided by the RLM Integrated Development Plan, the HEAT tool was applied in the form of eight indicators relating to heat-

SUBMITTER: Wright CY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9957206 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature