NIH Health Extreme Weather Program Highlights Rutgers Research

Multiple projects pioneered by researchers at Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research (IFH) have been highlighted by the NIH Program on Health Extreme Weather (HEW). The HEW Program aims to enhance understanding of the effects of climate change on the health of communities across the United States.

The program’s ‘research highlights’ webpage features a PLoS One-published study coauthored by Soko Setoguchi, director of IFH’s Center for Climate, Health, and Healthcare, and Daniel Horton, core member of IFH’s Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science. The study, Common Medications Make Older Adults More Sensitive to Heat, evaluated the effects of potentially heat-sensitizing medications in vulnerable older patients and concluded that, even at average temperatures, these medications may increase heat-related hospitalizations among older patients. These findings can help physicians ensure their patients take appropriate precautions during high-temperature weather to protect their health.

The website also features an active research study being conducted by Benjamin Bates, core member of IFH’s Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science. This study, Improving Health Outcomes in Breast Cancer Patients Following Severe Storms, examines how severe storms and weather events can increase the risk for health complications, especially for patients with breast cancer. By identifying treatment disruption, the study aims to form and implement strategies to prevent complications and improve patient safety.

Further, the NIH HEW program’s strategic framework report highlights additional IFH research.

The framework report is “intended to guide NIH’s short- and medium-term investments by providing concepts and examples of research that would generate scientific knowledge and innovations to address the most critical risks to human health across the lifespan that are associated with extreme weather.”

The report highlights research by Aayush Visaria, core member of IFH’s Center for Climate, Health, and Healthcare, Setoguchi and Bates on hypoglycemia in insulin users. In this study, researchers measured the associations between heat and hypoglycemia-related hospital visits in older adults with diabetes from the U.S. and Taiwan, finding that higher ambient temperature was associated with increased hospital visits.

The framework also features Setoguchi’s research study, Disease Outcomes iN Older adults under extreme Heat, AiR pollution and Medication use (DO-NO-HARM), which discovered a synergistic effect between exposure to fine particulate matter in wildfire smoke and corticosteroid use on hospitalization and mortality in older adults. The study results, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that exposure was associated with increased hospitalizations for cardiovascular thromboembolic events.