A Microsimulation Model of Population Heat Exposure

Exposure to extreme heat is an important cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. The elevation of temperatures and increases in extended periods of high temperatures due to climate change means that heat exposure as a health concern will increase. Thus, methodologies that researchers and practitioners can use to assess heat exposure among various population groups will become increasingly important. Human exposure to heat can be measured by wearable sensors and the maintenance of activity logs of a sample of individuals over the course of their daily activities. We introduce an alternative methodology that we believe offers great promise for evaluating heat exposure of the entire population of a city, region or state. Microsimulation modeling of the daily activity patterns of a synthetic population for the state of Alabama demonstrates the efficacy of this approach in measuring “potential” heat exposure, and in evaluating the significance of demographic attributes, in this case household income, that correlate with different exposure levels.