A new Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute (HPI) study found that living in a neighborhood with higher vulnerability to environmental heat predicted worse stroke severity. Investigators from HPI's PRIME research center at Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York state, evaluated all acute ischemic stroke admissions to Northwell's comprehensive stroke center over a decade.
Each stroke patient was assigned a score from the Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI), a neighborhood-level measure of heat-related mortality risk. The patient's HVI was then assessed relative to the severity of stroke upon admission. The results showed that patients living in a high-HVI neighborhood—the two highest ranks of heat vulnerability—were 40% more likely to have severe stroke .
The study was published August 20 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health . Climate change is creating higher surface temperatures across the globe, including in the United States, and the effects are widespread. Exposure to heat is a risk factor for stroke incidence and mortality, but studies have not looked at whether the factors that make people more vulnerable to heat also impact stroke severity.
Jason Wang, Ph.D., lead author and professor at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, and colleagues used HVI data from the New York City Department of Health for all zip codes in the region.
The HVI includes environmental (i.e., surface temperat.