Maricopa County Department of Public Health launched an interactive, online heat-related illness and death dashboard to help provide more accessible and timely data around countywide heat-related hospital visits and deaths.
The publishing of this tool coincides with a multi-partner, countywide heat preparedness and response effort already underway to prevent another summer of record-breaking heat deaths.
The dashboard will help public health officials and other key stakeholders involved in heat response activities monitor health impacts of environmental temperature and help inform outreach and interventions needed to help residents stay safe from extreme heat.
It features:
- Near real-time data on heat-related hospital visits in addition to data on heat-related deaths
- Comparative data for heat-related deaths and hospital visits for 2023 and 2024
- Patient characteristics by age, race, and sex to show who is at highest risk from heat and inform prevention efforts
- Patient characteristics on housing status and substance use involvement in heat-related hospital visits and deaths
In addition to showing daily county-level heat-related illness and deaths reported, the dashboard also will feature daily maximum and minimum temperatures to help illuminate the impacts of extreme heat.
The dashboard is perfected for desktop viewing. MCDPH has prepared a guidance document to support users as they navigate different features of the dashboard.
In the coming weeks, the dashboard will include an interactive map that displays heat-related deaths by sub-county geography and information about the circumstances of each death, such as outdoor or indoor and whether air conditioning was available or not functioning in the home.
