Indoor-outdoor environmental coupling and exposure risk to extreme heat and poor air quality during heat waves

Mortality and morbidity associated with extreme summer heat and poor air quality continues to be one of the most pressing human health challenges in cities and is likely to be exacerbated in the future due to urban growth and climate change. Heat is currently the leading weather-related cause of death in the developed world (e.g. CDC 2004), and future heat vulnerability for the elderly is projected to increase substantially in the coming decades (Sheridan et al., 2012). Recent extreme heat events such as the May 2015 heat wave in India that saw record temperatures near 50C and resulted in more than 2500 deaths, have underlined the importance and urgency of the problem.