Climate Health and Vulnerability in Urban Populations

SIMMER is a highly interdisciplinary program designed to assess current and future vulnerability to heat stress in urban environments through integration of physical and social science models. Focused on the city of Houston, the SIMMER project seeks to incorporate data from various sources including heat-related mortality and hospital admissions, a survey of Houston residents, the U.S. Census and other city and state agencies, remote sensing, high resolution climate models, and observed meteorological data. In this talk, we will discuss the SIMMER project and an initial analysis of this data, including assessments of vulnerability and a statistical model for linking mortality to vulnerability, socio-economics, weather, and climate.