# Connecting weather-related health risk and climate change projections in relation to rural health disparities

> **NIH NIH R01** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $630,633

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The world is already 1.2 oC warmer now than in the second half of the 19th century. The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that we will cross a 1.5 oC increase in the coming decades. While
the health impacts of climate change affect everyone, some groups are at higher risk for the associated health
burden, particularly racial/ethnic minority or low income persons. This is one pathway through which climate
change could exacerbate existing issues of environmental justice. The vast majority of previous studies on how
weather impacts health, and these relationships under climate change, have focused on urban areas, however
such impacts could differ in rural areas, which have different weather patterns, greenspace, and populations.
Limited research suggests that racial health disparities may be larger in rural areas than in urban settings. The
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and NIH recognize rural populations, and
people of color in rural areas in particular, as critical health disparities populations. The parent R01 investigates
how weather and air pollution affect risk of hospital admissions and adverse birth outcomes in Virginia and
West Virginia, with a focus on environmental health disparities. In particular, we investigate differences in these
exposures and in associated health responses by several individual- and community-level characteristics
including urbanicity (e.g., different impacts for rural vs. urban populations), race/ethnicity, socio-economic
position, and other factors. Heat and heat waves are impacted by climate change, with overall higher
temperatures and heat waves that occur more frequently, last longer, and burn hotter. This Administrative
Supplement would estimate health burdens of heat and heat waves in the future, under specific climate change
scenarios, including by subpopulation (e.g., by urbanicity, race/ethnicity), thereby providing critical evidence on
public health burdens from climate change. The work is transdisciplinary, combining expertise in epidemiology
and atmospheric science, with state-of-the-science meteorological and climate change modeling. We would
estimate health risks from heat and heat waves under a changing climate for multiple scenarios reflecting
different greenhouse gas and energy emissions scenarios. These findings can aid decision-makers, from
communities to government officials, on issues such as heat action plans and decisions related to the built
environment (e.g., green cities to alleviate the urban heat island effect). We will generate maps of changes in
exposures under climate change that will be made publicly available. Also, when we have completed analysis
our estimates of heat and heat waves under climate change will be made publicly available to benefit the
broader scientific community and facilitate additional studies on climate change and health. This work lays the
foundation for future research on climate cha...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10838844
- **Project number:** 3R01MD016054-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michelle L Bell
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $630,633
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2022-07-24 → 2027-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10838844

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10838844, Connecting weather-related health risk and climate change projections in relation to rural health disparities (3R01MD016054-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10838844. Licensed CC0.

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