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Heat Stress Illness

Heat Stress Illness Indicators

CDC's Tracking Network uses data from many sources to track the health effects of extreme heat. The Tracking Network has data at the national level, allowing for comparisons across states. These comparisons can help local communities design interventions and better understand the possible health effects and risks to specific groups of people.

The following indicators can be used to identify patterns in health effects related to extreme heat and conditions that make people vulnerable to heat.

Heat Stress Emergency Department Visits

This indicator estimates the number and rate of emergency department visits for heat stress. It includes all cases where heat stress is listed as a primary or other diagnosis. These data come from hospital records and may not capture the full range of heat-related illness if exposure to excess heat is not explicitly documented. These data can be used to document changes over place and time, monitor vulnerable areas, and evaluate the results of local climate-adaptation strategies.

Heat Stress Hospitalizations

This indicator estimates the number and rate of hospitalizations for heat stress. It includes all cases where heat stress is listed as a primary or other diagnosis. These data come from hospital records and may not capture the full range of heat-related illness if exposure to excess heat is not explicitly documented. These data can be used to document changes over place and time, monitor vulnerable areas, and evaluate the results of local climate-adaptation strategies.

Read this MMWR report for a summary of heat stress illness hospitalizations data.

  • Heat Stress Illness Hospitalizations - Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, 20 States, 2001-2010, MMWR. December 12, 2014 / 63(SS13);1-10.

Heat-Related Mortality

This indicator is based on data from death certificates to evaluate deaths that have identified heat as an underlying or contributing cause.

Heat Vulnerability

This indicator includes measures that may make people at greater risk for heat-related health effects. These measures are diabetes, heart disease, poverty, race, advanced age, social isolation, disabilities, population density, forest canopy, developed land use, and cultivated crop land use.

The Tracking Network has additional extreme heat indicators related to climate change including temperature distribution, historical extreme heat days and events, and future projections of extreme heat.

See the Climate Change content area for other climate-related data.

 

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The Tracking Network has additional extreme heat indicators related to climate change including temperature distribution, historical extreme heat days and events, and future projections of extreme heat.

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