Vanos co-authors Nature comment on how physiology-based models can help
Jenni Vanos, Associate Professor, School of Sustainability in the College of Global Futures, is co-author on To save lives in heatwaves, focus on how human bodies work, a new comment in Nature.
A brief summary follows:
When air temperatures are expected to exceed a certain threshold, warnings are triggered that help to prepare health and energy systems for bouts of extreme heat. But the health-related warnings are limited by the quality of available data on heat-related deaths and disease, and they don’t enable precise tailoring of protective measures for groups that are at higher risk. The narrow focus on air temperature also strengthens an entrenched belief that reducing ambient temperatures is the only way to lessen the impacts of heat on health. But attempts to do this can be unsustainable or ineffective.
In a physiology-based approach, all the parameters with sufficiently high-quality data can be integrated into models to estimate three factors: a person’s core body temperature, their level of dehydration and the strain on their heart and circulatory system. And importantly, physiology-based models would enable governments, public-health organizations and others to proactively provide targeted, timely warnings, without having to wait for the collection of data on deaths and hospitalizations.