Reporting on Extreme Heat and Health

Instead of waiting for an extreme heat event to begin or end before publishing coverage, create awareness in advance – both seasonally and before a projected heat event.

Raising public awareness around impending risks can enable them to take preventive action.

Instead of focusing only on high daytime temperatures, remind your audience that high nighttime temperatures can be extremely dangerous – even if it’s less hot than during the day – for those who don’t have adequate cooling at home.

Bodies need to continue working hard to cool down when temperatures remain elevated at night, which causes cumulative stress. Humidity and other factors can compound risk even after the sun goes down.

Instead of focusing on heat only in outdoor settings, remember that indoors can be hotter than outdoors, and excess indoor heat is deadly.

Environmental heat stress, exercise intensity and clothing are the three main sources of heat stress and impact people indoors at home, at work, and in institutions such as jails, schools and care homes. Indoor spaces may be poorly ventilated, workers may need to wear personal protective equipment, and buildings may have additional heat sources contributing to high temperatures.

Instead of showing scenes of crowded beaches, swimming pools or fountains, show people struggling in the heat, and its negative and dangerous impacts.

Images that show people enjoying hot weather by spending time at the beach or pool hide the serious risk that many people face during hot weather, and often contradict the serious tone of the narrative. Negative impacts may include school closures, train cancellations due to buckled lines, impacts on food production, overrun ambulance services and ER waiting rooms, wildfires and air pollution, drought, flash flooding, etc.

Instead of only showing images of heat impacts, strike a balance by also showing positive action to mitigate or manage risk.

People tend to tune out excessively negative information, which can be perceived as alarmist. Instead, action-based imagery can provide a counter-message of hope and possibility to address the challenges of extreme heat. Positive action could include cooling centers, urban tree planting campaigns, home retrofitting grant initiatives, community outreach programmes that check on vulnerable populations, etc.

Instead of focusing only on heat stroke or mortality figures, look at the broad range of direct and indirect heat impacts on health and society.

Heat impacts manifest in many forms. Beyond mortality and morbidity figures, other areas worth exploring include impacts on labour productivity, stress, disease transmission, health service delivery, critical social infrastructure (including energy, transport, and water), congestion in hospitals, roads and public transit, car accidents, wildfires, ground-level ozone smog, flash floods, agricultural productivity and animal deaths, and outdoor exercise and exposure. Tip: Consider broader mortality figures, even if statistics are published months later.

Instead of focusing only on heatwaves, balance coverage between extreme heat events and chronic heat exposure and risk.

Chronic heat risk is increasing due to climate change and is a serious risk to health, particularly in hot climates worldwide where the majority of heat impacts occur outside extreme heat events.

Instead of conducting interviews only in hospital settings, find people where they are dealing with heat in various contexts.

Audiences want first-hand perspectives on how people are experiencing heat – at home, at work and in the community – and what they can do about it. Speak with the farm worker, gig worker, care home residents, ambulance driver, firefighter, and others.

Instead of only interviewing those in national or international expert roles, connect with local experts and researchers and responsible authorities.

Heat, health and climate change are global issues, but their impacts are felt locally. Heat risk varies greatly from location to location, and population to population. Heat and health experts who understand local conditions, perceptions and risk factors will provide an important perspective to the story, and can add to authoritative views from the national and international levels.

Instead of asking sources directly about heat and climate change,
ask about circumstantial factors that contribute to how they experience extreme heat.

The term ‘climate change’ and the idea that more extreme heat is being fuelled by it can evoke a strong response in some people, especially in areas with low acceptance of climate science or trust in the media,

While these people may be experiencing very real impacts of climate change, they may refute the connection. These sources will be more open to talk in terms that are less charged.

Instead of asking sources if they have experienced heat stroke or illness, ask sources if they’d experienced heat-specific symptoms.

The average person may not know the symptoms of heat illness, but will be able to explain how they are feeling – for example if they have experienced headaches, dizziness or cramps while working outside.