The United States has the world's largest prison population, with Texas having the most incarcerated people in any state.
According to a new study led by researchers at Brown University's School of Public Health, as climate change continues to increase the severity, frequency, and duration of heat waves, the approximately 160,000 people in Texas prisons - as well as those who work in these settings - face intense physical duress in prisons without climate controls.
Extreme temperatures take a deadly toll on people in Texas prisons
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The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open on Wednesday, Nov. 2, looked at the relationship between heat exposure and mortality risks in Texas prisons, focusing on how these risks differed between prisons with and without air conditioning, as per ScienceDaily.
The researchers examined data from 2001 to 2019 and discovered that 271 people died as a result of extreme heat exposure during that time period.
The researchers discovered that even a 1-degree increase above 85 degrees Fahrenheit can increase the daily risk of death by 0.7%.
The research team, which included scholars from Harvard University, Boston University, and the organization Texas Prison Community Advocates, combined data from the U.S.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics based its findings on mortality in Texas prisons on NASA temperature data and a novel epidemiologic analysis.
According to the team, approximately 13% of mortality during hot months in Texas prison facilities without air conditioning could be attributed to extreme heat.
According to lead study author Julie Skarha, who will receive her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Brown in June 2022, while an average of 14 people died each year from heat-related causes in Texas prisons without air conditioning, not a single heat-related death occurred in climate-controlled prisons.
"The majority of Texas prisons lack universal air conditioning," Skarha explained. "We discovered a 30-fold increase in heat-related mortality in these settings when compared to estimates of heat-related mortality in the general U.S. population."
Heat is often a silent killer, according to study co-author Dr. David Dosa, an associate professor of medicine and health services, policy, and practice at Brown.
"We've seen similar situations in nursing homes where heat isn't reported on the death certificate," said Dosa, a practicing geriatrician with dual appointments at Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Rhode Island Hospital.
"It's only after we run these analyses that we can determine how much of a role heat played in someone's death."
More than a dozen states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, do not have air conditioning in all of their prison units, as per The Conversation.
According to recent studies, many of these states also have some of the highest heat risks in the country.
Prisons house hundreds or thousands of people in buildings that were not designed with extreme heat and heat waves in mind. Prison building materials and designs can expose inmates to more heat.
Some states require prisons to keep indoor temperatures within certain ranges.
Temperatures in prisons are not regulated in Texas, but county and private municipal jails supervised by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards must be kept between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit (18-30 C).
There are no comparable federal standards.
J. Carlee Purdum, a Research Assistant Professor of Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University show how hazards and disasters affect people who are incarcerated. In a recently published report.
Purdum and Benika Dixon collaborated with Texas Prisons Community Advocates, a nonprofit that works to improve conditions in Texas prisons, to learn how incarcerated people in the state deal with heat without air conditioning.
High temperatures are especially dangerous in prisons because inmates are more susceptible to heat.
People incarcerated have high rates of chronic illness, mental health conditions, and disabilities, and a sizable proportion are over the age of 50.
Since 1998, at least 23 incarcerated people in Texas have died from heat illness.
Because heat aggravates other underlying physical and mental health conditions, the actual number of heat-related deaths in Texas prisons is almost certainly much higher.
