Heat Stress: Exposure Among Low-Income Residents in Bangladesh and Evaluation of Indoor Interventions

During the last two decades, nearly half a million people died each year from heat-related causes; climate change is expected to exacerbate the burden of adverse health outcomes. Heat stress has been associated with an increase in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and mortality, chronic respiratory disease, lower respiratory infection, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and poor mental health. The investigators will to determine personal heat stress of low-income individuals who do not have access to air conditioning, evaluate the effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, and scalability of building-level cooling strategies to reduce indoor heat stress among vulnerable individuals, and evaluate the impact of these interventions on heart rate. A disproportionate burden of heat-related death and disease is borne by low-income communities because they do not have access to cooling and suffer from comorbidities that exacerbate the adverse impacts of heat stress. South Asia faces the greatest current and predicted loss in disability-adjusted life years due to heat stress, and heat stress is particularly strong in informal settlements. As such, the investigators plan to conduct this study in informal settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The overall hypothesis is that individuals who live in homes with corrugated iron roofs and walls are at elevated risk of heat stress and that it is possible to modify homes to prevent increases in heart rate associated with heat stress, ultimately reducing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The investigators will evaluate the impact of cooling infrastructure and/or equipment interventions on residents' heart rate (primary outcome), heart rate variability, sleep quality, self-reported thermal comfort, mental health, wellness, fatigue, and indoor thermal conditions (secondary outcomes).