Urban-H Themes: Housing, Heat, Health

PIs: Greg Wellenius, Professor, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, & Chad Milando, Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health

Co-PIs: Kipruto Kirwa, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, & Emma Gause, Research Scientist, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health

Project Description: Extreme heat is becoming more frequent and severe, with deleterious impacts on human health. Populations living in urban areas are at particularly high risk due to overlapping built environment, demographic, and individual-level factors. Decades of racial and economic residential segregation and disinvestment have produced “redlined” neighborhoods characterized by poor housing stock and residents with few resources available for adaptation to the impacts of extreme heat. To implement effective interventions against extreme heat exposure in urban areas – the scale at which stakeholders and local changemakers operate – we need a better and more granular understanding of how built environment, social, demographic, and individual vulnerability factors combine to exacerbate or reduce health risks. To accomplish this understanding, our proposal leverages high-resolution geographic, demographic, and healthcare utilization data from across Massachusetts, including all-cause, acute heat-related, and mental health-related hospital visits. In Aim 1, we examine the influence of historical redlining on the risk of emergency room visits on hot days. In Aim 2, we examine the increased risk for hospital visits on hot days associated with the combined risk of multiple intersecting built environments and sociodemographic vulnerability factors. Our long-term goal is to establish a research program to address urban heat, housing, and health ecosystems at a granular level for Massachusetts. 

Urban-H Themes: Housing, Heat, Health

PI: Rachel Oblath, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine

Co-PI: Amruta Nori-Sarma, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health

Project Description: Periods of extreme heat, which are increasing in frequency due to climate change, have been linked to adverse mental health outcomes, including symptoms related to schizophrenia, substance use, mood disorders, and suicide. At heightened risk for negative effects of extreme heat are individuals experiencing homelessness, who have higher rates of serious mental illness than the general population, and who may not have consistent access to reliable shelter, air-conditioned spaces, cool showers, or other common methods for adapting to heat. Our project seeks to understand better how adults with serious mental illness who are also experiencing homelessness manage during periods of extreme heat and the unique barriers they face in adapting to this increasingly common aspect of climate change. We will conduct qualitative interviews with adults experiencing homelessness who are receiving psychiatric emergency services in a community crisis stabilization center serving publicly insured and uninsured individuals primarily from neighborhoods in Boston identified as urban heat islands. The results from our study will directly inform the development of novel interventions and policies that address the needs of those most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change. 

Urban-H Themes: Housing, Health

PIs: Amanda Tarullo, Associate Professor, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, & Sarah Watamura, Professor & Chair of Psychology, University of Denver

Co-PIs: Shaina Brady, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, & Arcadia Ewell, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences

Project Description: The goal of this project is to understand the contributions of poverty-related disparities in neighborhood and housing to sleep and mental health problems in early childhood. We will leverage data from an ongoing randomized controlled trial, the Parent and Toddler Health (PATH) project, which focuses on low-income families in the Boston and Denver metropolitan areas with toddlers experiencing co-morbid sleep and mental health problems. This award will enable us to conduct geocoding to assess neighborhood-level factors, including noise pollution, risk of lead paint exposure, access to neighborhood opportunities, and heat island severity, and to use spatial analyses to examine these factors in relation to actigraph and parent-reported indices of toddler sleep and mental health. Further, we will conduct brief interviews with participants to assess family-level rent burden, housing stability, and crowding, and these factors will also be examined in relation to toddler sleep and mental health. We hope that results will inform child and family policy and community-focused intervention approaches.