Heat, Health and COVID-19

First and foremost everyone here at Vitalyst is thinking about every one of you. Wash up, mask up, maintain social distancing please, and keep a heads up for your fellow Arizonans. As COVID-19 cases are increasing significantly in our state, so are our temperatures – and, sadly, our wildfires. COVID-19 didn’t respond to increasing heat, but our natural resources, our built environments, and our health and well-being most certainly do. Heat is a major challenge for Arizona. We should continuously be talking, innovating, and iterating on it. Today we’re launching Part one of our first two-part dialogue on heat. In two weeks, we’ll be talking about actions being taking by cities and organizations focused on our most vulnerable populations. But first, today we’re talking with three experts about how we should more deeply understand the issues. After all, big challenges are best understood when we take them apart, understand their components, engage authentically with community members, and uncover root causes that affect health and well-being. So, with that simple but challenging agenda in mind, let’s get to it. It’s time to talk about coalitions, systems, governments, planning, airports, air conditioning, bus stops, communities and health as things heat up for Arizona in the summer of 2020.Links:Urban Land Institute "Scorched" Report: Summary Release, Report PDFMaricopa County Bridging Climate Change and Public Health: Web page, Strategic Plan, Things You Can DoHeat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg