“For years we have known that air conditioning protects people from extreme heat, but we could only guess by how much because the available data told us who owned an air conditioner, not who could actually afford to run one,” said Kai Chen, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.
The strong protective effect of AC against heat-attributable mortality indicates the public health necessity of addressing urban heat by making AC affordable and greening urban spaces, the authors noted.
Ironically not open access facepalm
The big thing is public spaces that are conditioned and available.
I’m afraid that’s not how heat exhaustion works. When you need air conditioning the most, you will be most unwilling to move.
you kinda go to the centers before that. you don’t just turn on public ac when its lethal you start when its uncomfortable.
That is not how humans work. People will continue as normal until severe symptoms emerge. That is why an 80-90% preventable cause of death, cornary artery disease, is the leading killer in the developed world. People do not eat the diet and obtain the exercise necessary to prevent it even though they know how.
In addition, most people do not have the wealth or luxury of not going to work to seek shelter from heat. They have to feed themselves and their families. They will stay in the heat until it is too late.
thats all well and good but having an option is better than not.
I don’t think anyone is disputing that. It’s simply not going to be effective enough to prevent the majority of deaths.
I think that type of thing already has. Chicago had a lot of heat deaths in heat waves long ago and heating centers are a big reason we have not since. we learned our lesson like with the blizzard of 79. I certainly think it prevents more deaths than occur and that would be the majority. Its combined with messaging telling people not to wait and to get to cooling centers. There is a lot good public policy can do.