Wednesday, August 18, 1999
CDC to help city learn from heat-related deaths
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati health officials want to know whether they could have done anything different to prevent the 14 deaths during the July heat wave.
At the city's request, a team from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) arrived Monday for a two-week investigation of how Cincinnati responded to the heat wave.
The CDC team plans to study the 14 deaths, interview relatives and neighbors, and meet with various local officials. One possible outcome of the study: updated national recommendations for coping with extreme heat.
“This year was one of the worst years in Cincinnati in terms of injury and death related to the heat,” said Cincinnati Health Commissioner Dr. Malcolm Adcock. “We would like (the CDC) to study our system to see what worked well and what can be im proved.”
Cincinnati was among the earliest and hardest-hit cities in the nation during the summer's big heat wave, which claimed more than 197 lives nationwide July 21-Aug. 1.
The CDC plans to study whether the local deaths were preventable and whether the deaths reveal any new factors that can predict who faces the most health risk during hot weather, said Dr. Carol Rubin, chief of the environmental exposures and health effects section of the National Center for Environmental Health.
Dr. Rubin said the CDC “learned a lot” from studying Chicago after a 1995 heat wave that killed 465 residents. The CDC has since studied heat-related deaths in several other cities.
In Cincinnati, “we'll be looking for what worked and what didn't,” she said.
Among the questions expected to be explored:
• The Hamilton County coroner's office was so quick to investigate heat-related deaths that for most of the heat wave, Hamilton County was the only jurisdiction in Ohio to report deaths. Several days after the heat wave passed, the Montgomery County coroner confirmed six heat-related deaths. Was Hamilton County too hasty, or were other cities too slow?
• During the heat emergency, Cincinnati opened 28 recreation centers as “cool centers.” But few people used them despite free transportation. What can the city do to reach more people who need help?
While there are always lessons to be learned, Dr. Adcock said, the CDC review is just as much about determining what Cincinnati did right. In fact, he predicts that Cincinnati's response to the heat wave will serve as a model for other cities.
“We believe the community as a whole really responded well,” he said.“ ... We feel Cincinnati did its normal, caring thing.”
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