OHA highlights DRLN in 2024 report

Our Network and Resilience Department, which is a partner to OHA's Climate and Health Program, uses the states working definition of climate and health resilience as: the capacity of a community to successfully anticipate and adapt to climate stressors while promoting equity and well-being. OHA recently published their 2024 report, with our Network highlighted in page 22.

The Climate and Health in Oregon report shows numerous examples of direct links between heat and wildfire events and heat-related and respiratory illnesses – using emergency department (ED), urgent care, hospitalization and death data, and temperature and air quality data:

• The number of nights that are warmer than 65 degrees is increasing across Oregon. Warmer nights mean homes without air conditioning do not cool overnight, and people can’t get relief from high daytime temperatures, especially during consecutive days of high heat.
• OHA is seeing health effects on days when the Heat Index – a measure of how hot it feels when relative humidity is factored in with the actual air temperature – is at or above 80 degrees. In 2023, people sought emergency or urgent care at higher-than-expected levels during high Heat Index days.
• Although 2021 saw 109 heat-related deaths and 2022 had 22, the eight health-related deaths in 2023 were still more than the annual count of heat-related deaths in the decade before 2021, when the number of heat deaths did not exceed four per year. During 2021-2023, cardiovascular disease was a contributing cause of 25% of heat-related deaths, and people 50 and older accounted for 87% of heat deaths.
• Levels of particulate matter, or PM2.5, from wildfire smoke are expected to double or triple by the end of the century. The increases in smoke are predicted to cause excess asthma-related ED visits and hospitalizations at a rate of 42 excess asthma events per 10,000 population in 2050. Smoke-related ED visits and hospitalizations for asthma are expected to add nearly $100 million to health care costs in Oregon by that decade.
• American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander people in Oregon have rates of health care visits for air quality-related respiratory illness that are double or near-double the statewide rate of 22 per 1,000 residents.
• Twelve counties – Crook, Deschutes, Douglas, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Linn, Marion and Umatilla – exceed the state average for both air quality days at or above moderate Air Quality Index, or AQI, and heat index above 80 degrees.
• Nearly 40% of Oregonians (1.7 million) live in the 12 counties that experienced 14 or more days with heat at or above 80 degrees and compromised air quality occurring on the same day during May to September 2023. All these counties are home to Oregonians who report a higher chronic disease burden than the state average.
• In September 2023, more than half of Oregon’s land area experienced severe drought (52%), while 30% experienced extreme drought.