ClimaWATCH: An Interactive Tool to Boost Climate Adaptation and Resilience

Learn What ClimaWATCH Can Do

Mathematica’s ClimaWATCH tool makes it easy to explore how exposure to heat waves, susceptibility to their effects, and heat-induced illnesses vary across communities and over time. By providing dynamic, data-driven maps and metrics, ClimaWATCH can help government officials, public health agencies, health care providers and others:

• Identify geographic corridors where heat waves have concentrated;
• Assess how socioenvironmental factors differ in counties with and without heat waves, to pinpoint sources of inequity and target resources; and
• Quantify excess heat-induced health issues, and the financial toll these illnesses take.

Heat waves have historically caused more fatalities than any other extreme weather event and have cost the United States billions of dollars. Many of the hottest urban heat islands, where temperatures can soar up to 20°F higher than in surrounding areas, are inhabited by people living in poverty and by communities of color. Mathematica’s interactive tool, called ClimaWATCH (Climate and Weather Analytics, Trends, and Community Health), shows how heat waves have impacted health and magnified inequity at the local, state, and national levels. Focusing on Medicaid beneficiaries, ClimaWATCH synthesizes and maps data on temperature and dew point; vulnerability related to demographic social, environmental, and infrastructural factors; and direct and indirect health issues caused or worsened by heat. ClimaWATCH’s novel algorithm quantifies excessive health service use and spending attributable to heat waves. Officials can use the dynamic data summaries—provided by demographic group, care setting, and diagnosis—to develop tailored heat action plans that protect their most vulnerable and improve climate resilience.

Explore ClimaWATCH here.