Climate change affects human health by making extreme heat more common, more severe, and last longer. That is expected to continue into the future. EPA and CDC have jointly published a new online resource, Climate Change and Extreme Heat: What You Can Do to Prepare. This handbook, available below, explains the connection between climate change and extreme heat events, and outlines actions citizens can take to protect their health during extreme heat.
This resource builds on the 2006 EPA Excessive Heat Events Guidebook and includes up-to-date climate information from recent climate assessment reports, such as the 2014 National Climate Assessment, the 2016 Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States, and EPA’s 2016 Climate Change Indicators in the United States report.