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The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities

Recent research suggests that extreme heat affects the demand for emergency services, including police and fire department incidents. Yet there is limited understanding of impacts across U.S. cities, with varying population sizes, and between different climates. This study sought to examine the dail...

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Autores principales: Williams, Augusta, McDonogh‐Wong, Larissa, Spengler, John D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7648134/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33204929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000282
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author Williams, Augusta
McDonogh‐Wong, Larissa
Spengler, John D.
author_facet Williams, Augusta
McDonogh‐Wong, Larissa
Spengler, John D.
author_sort Williams, Augusta
collection PubMed
description Recent research suggests that extreme heat affects the demand for emergency services, including police and fire department incidents. Yet there is limited understanding of impacts across U.S. cities, with varying population sizes, and between different climates. This study sought to examine the daily utilization of police and fire department services, during hot days in 23 U.S. cities representing six climate zones using relative risk (RR) and time series analyses of daily police and fire department incidents. The warm season analyses utilized three temperature metrics: daily maximum temperature (T(MAX)), daily maximum heat index (HI(MAX)), and the preceding daily minimum temperature (T(MIN)). Across these cities, the RR of police department incidents on days where T(MAX) was at or above the 95th percentile significantly increased within a range from 3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.3%, 6.3%) to 57% (95% CI: 24.5%, 89.7%), compared with a nonhot day. At the same temperature thresholds, the RR of fire department dispatches increased from 6% (95% CI: 3.0%, 8.6%) to 18% (95% CI: 15.2%, 21.6%). These results remained consistent across temperature metrics and consecutive days of extreme heat. The estimated effects of daily maximum temperature, daily maximum heat index, and daily minimum temperature were nonlinear for police and fire department incidents across all cities. These findings inform climate change adaptation strategies, preparing budgets and personnel for emergency agencies to ensure resilience as periods of extreme heat increase in frequency, severity, and duration.
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spelling pubmed-76481342020-11-16 The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities Williams, Augusta McDonogh‐Wong, Larissa Spengler, John D. Geohealth Research Articles Recent research suggests that extreme heat affects the demand for emergency services, including police and fire department incidents. Yet there is limited understanding of impacts across U.S. cities, with varying population sizes, and between different climates. This study sought to examine the daily utilization of police and fire department services, during hot days in 23 U.S. cities representing six climate zones using relative risk (RR) and time series analyses of daily police and fire department incidents. The warm season analyses utilized three temperature metrics: daily maximum temperature (T(MAX)), daily maximum heat index (HI(MAX)), and the preceding daily minimum temperature (T(MIN)). Across these cities, the RR of police department incidents on days where T(MAX) was at or above the 95th percentile significantly increased within a range from 3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.3%, 6.3%) to 57% (95% CI: 24.5%, 89.7%), compared with a nonhot day. At the same temperature thresholds, the RR of fire department dispatches increased from 6% (95% CI: 3.0%, 8.6%) to 18% (95% CI: 15.2%, 21.6%). These results remained consistent across temperature metrics and consecutive days of extreme heat. The estimated effects of daily maximum temperature, daily maximum heat index, and daily minimum temperature were nonlinear for police and fire department incidents across all cities. These findings inform climate change adaptation strategies, preparing budgets and personnel for emergency agencies to ensure resilience as periods of extreme heat increase in frequency, severity, and duration. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-11-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7648134/ /pubmed/33204929 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000282 Text en ©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Williams, Augusta
McDonogh‐Wong, Larissa
Spengler, John D.
The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title_full The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title_fullStr The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title_short The Influence of Extreme Heat on Police and Fire Department Services in 23 U.S. Cities
title_sort influence of extreme heat on police and fire department services in 23 u.s. cities
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7648134/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33204929
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000282
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