What happened
A new study has begun in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to assess how heat affects physical and mental health and to develop a personalised heat-impact metric for individuals, households, and communities. The project is a climate-adaptation and public-health exercise, not just a data collection exercise, because it also examines whether health systems can respond to heat stress across levels of care.
Project design and partners
The study is led by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation with state governments, the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) institutes.
The study will examine environmental temperature, pollution, air quality, and humidity. It will also track body temperature among participants and survey around 1,200 households across four sites, with a comparison between summer and non-summer months.
Why the study matters
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