Inequities in heat-related emergency department visits in California from 2005 – 2017

Marisa Donnelly, Brooke Lappe, Meredith Milet and Jason Vargo

PLOS Climate, 2026, vol. 5, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: Rising temperatures and extreme heat pose a substantial threat to human health through increases in heat-related morbidity and mortality. Moreover, social determinants of health can exacerbate the impact of heat on susceptible populations. This study investigates the inequities in heat-related emergency department (ED) visits in California from 2005-2017, focusing on how social determinants of health, represented by the California Healthy Places Index (HPI), may influence the associations between temperature and ED visits. A Distributed Lag Nonlinear Model (DLNM) was employed to assess the association between daily temperatures and ED visits for heat-related physical illness, mental health, and all-cause visits. The California HPI was used to stratify the data and evaluate disparities in heat-related ED visits across different socioeconomic conditions. There were 129,935,301 ED visits in California from 2005-2017. We find that 5.1% of heat-related physical illness visits, 5.4% of heat-related mental health visits, and

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pclm00:0000586

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000586

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