Climate change presents a serious challenge to cities that may face unanticipated stress on critical infrastructure and city services. In particular, climate science predicts a growing number of heat events that will threaten the health of vulnerable populations in urban settings. Major heat waves have caused thousands of excess deaths in the United States and Europe in the past decade. Regional planners across the globe are developing models to help them understand the impact of climate change on services including healthcare facilities, emergency response services and critical infrastructure.
Epistemix delivered model-derived insights to enable civic leaders to plan for the effects of climate change. The Epistemix approach brought together specific information about the demographics of a city's population, the spatial distribution of people with specific health risks, and the availability of healthcare centers to estimate the vulnerability of city's emergency medical response system to potential future heat and air pollution threats. Moreover, we can use the same analytical approach to forecast the effects of climate change -- or other anthropogenic or natural disasters -- for any county in the United States, providing tools for better resilience through preparedness planning.