Now, the heat dangers long known in greater Phoenix are becoming familiar nationwide as global warming creates new challenges to protect older residents.
Paramedics summoned to an Arizona retirement community last summer found an 80-year-old woman slumped inside her mobile home, enveloped in the suffocatingEfforts to revive her failed, and her death was ruled environmental heat exposure aggravated by heart disease and diabetes., older people like the Sun Lakes mobile home resident accounted for most of the 77 people who died last summer in broiling heat inside their homes, almost all without air conditioning.
From the Pacific Northwest to Chicago to North Carolina, health clinics, utilities and local governments are being tested to keep older people safe when temperatures soar. They’re adopting rules for disconnecting electricity, mandating when to switch on communal air conditioning and improving communication with at-risk people living alone.
Situated in the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix and its suburbs are ground zero for heat-associated deaths in the U.S. Such fatalities are so common that Arizona’s largest county keeps a during the six-month hot season from May through October. Temperatures this year were already hitting the high 90s the first week of April.Temperatures almost reached 100F on April 11 in Phoenix, a sign that summer is getting close for Arizona. While many Arizonans are used to the heat, the same can't be said for those who are visiting the Valley from other parts of the country.
where she studies how environmental factors affect health and aging. "The world is changing rapidly and I fear we are not acting fast enough to teach people how harmful rising temperatures can be."estimated more than a third of U.S. heat deaths each year can be attributed to human-caused global warming. It found more than 1,100 deaths a year from climate change-caused heat in some 200 U.S.
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