美国国家公共电台 NPR NPR Investigation: Low-Income Urban Areas Are Often Hotter

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

In big cities across the U.S., low-income neighborhoods are hotter than wealthier ones. That's the finding of a joint¹ investigation² by NPR and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism³ at the University of Maryland. As NPR's Meg Anderson reports, that heat can be deadly.

MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE⁴: In a vacant lot in her West Baltimore neighborhood, Shakira Franklin is describing the first asthma⁵ attack she's had in nearly five years. It happened a few days earlier when temperatures hit 100 degrees.

SHAKIRA FRANKLIN: In this neighborhood, that feels like 110.

ANDERSON: For Franklin, that's a big deal. Her asthma is triggered by heat.

FRANKLIN: You know, I didn't really come outside, but I had to go to work. And before I know it, I was gasping⁶ for air.

ANDERSON: Breathing felt like trying to drink water through a pinched straw.

FRANKLIN: You're gasping at this point. You're trying to bring your air through as much as you can.

ANDERSON: She says when she drives out of her neighborhood to her job by the city's harbor, she can actually feel the breeze get cooler.

FRANKLIN: Like, I can actually feel me riding out of heat. Like, when I get to a certain place when I'm on my way, I'll turn off my air, and I'll roll my windows down to save gas.

ANDERSON: And so people know that.

FRANKLIN: Yeah. When you from this area, yeah, you know it.

ANDERSON: Franklin isn't imagining that change in temperature. Her neighborhood, Franklin Square - no relation to her name - is hotter than about two-thirds of the neighborhoods in Baltimore. It's also in one of the city's poorer areas. That's according to an analysis by NPR and the Howard Center.

Citywide in Baltimore, the hottest neighborhoods can differ by as much as 10 degrees from the coolest, and the hottest parts of the city also have higher rates of poverty. We wanted to see just how common that pattern is across the country. We mapped 97 major U.S. cities by heat and income. The vast majority have that same pattern, to varying degrees. And more than two-thirds had an even stronger link between heat and income than Baltimore did. That matters because heat can have potentially fatal consequences. And, our analysis shows, the people exposed to that extra heat in the hottest parts of town are often the city's poorest and disproportionately people of color. On top of that, cities already tend to be hotter than their rural surroundings.

BRIAN STONE: If you have less green cover, you will almost always have higher temperatures and greater exposures to heat.

ANDERSON: Brian Stone, director of the Urban Climate Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says trees and green space cool the air and provide shade. Pavement, on the other hand, absorbs heat and holds it in. At night, a large city can be as much as 22 degrees warmer than its surroundings. Plus, common features of cities, like major roadways, create even more heat.

STONE: So all of the pollution that comes out of the tailpipe of our vehicles - there's also a lot of waste heat.

ANDERSON: Stone says it makes sense that low-income neighborhoods often suffer more because compared to wealthier areas, they tend to have even fewer trees, even more concrete and even more waste heat from nearby factories or highways. That means as the planet warms, the urban poor will actually experience more heat simply by virtue⁷ of where they live.

We went to the places in Baltimore where our data said it was the hottest, and residents there described oppressive summer heat.

LEE LEWIS: It's like the sun just comes in and sit right here.

HANNAH TRENT: It was so hot that you could smell the heat.

JOE BOSTON: When it's hot like it is now, most of the time, I stay in.

IANTHIA DARDEN: I can feel the wheezing⁸ coming and I need to go someplace where I know I need to get cool.

ANDERSON: That was Ianthia Darden, Joe Boston, Hannah Trent and Lee Lewis.

Living day after day in the heat isn't just uncomfortable; it can be deadly. The Howard Center obtained EMS and hospital data in Baltimore and compared it to the city's heat patterns. When the heat index reached dangerous levels last summer, EMS calls increased citywide for heat stroke. But calls also increased for chronic⁹ conditions, including several cardiovascular and respiratory conditions.

And even when controlling for income, there were differences across the city. From 2013 to 2018, Medicaid patients in Baltimore's hottest areas visited the hospital with those conditions at higher rates than Medicaid patients in the cooler areas, according to the Howard Center analysis.

AMIT CHANDRA: A lot of times, the heat played a factor in making a chronic condition acutely worse.

ANDERSON: Dr. Amit Chandra runs the emergency room at an inner-city University of Maryland hospital. He says that's especially true for heart conditions because the body has to work harder to cool off. Respiratory conditions can increase, too, because heat can actually worsen air quality. Chandra says even looking at a patient's medical records won't necessarily tell you how heat could be harming their health.

CHANDRA: We wouldn't diagnose them at the end of the day with heat exhaustion¹⁰ or heat stroke, necessarily, unless their temperature went up. So there's probably quite a few folks that are affected¹¹ by the heat, and we're not really tracking or measuring.

ANDERSON: In the ER at Bon Secours Hospital in West Baltimore, James Batson is wheezing and unable to catch his breath.

REGINALD BROWN: How you feeling, sir?

ANDERSON: The heat index, which factors in humidity, is nearly 90 degrees.

BROWN: Mind if I take another listen to your...

JAMES BATSON: Yeah.

BROWN: ...To your chest here?

ANDERSON: Dr. Reginald Brown examines him.

BROWN: Deep breath.

ANDERSON: Batson has asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder¹², or COPD. He's wearing an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

Do you feel like your asthma and COPD gets worse in the summertime?

BATSON: Only when the humidity's high.

ANDERSON: What does that feel like?

BATSON: It just - you can't breathe. Just feel like it - chest going to bust¹³ open.

ANDERSON: He says when it's humid, he can't breathe, and it feels like his chest is going to bust open.

Most patients who come to Bon Secours Hospital are low-income, and many are underinsured. People in poverty are more vulnerable to many chronic conditions, including some that are made worse by heat. And having less money can make it harder to cool off in the first place. Air conditioning, for instance, might be a pricey luxury for a family struggling to buy groceries.

GEORGES BENJAMIN: People with money, of course, can do that a lot better than people with less money.

ANDERSON: Dr. Georges Benjamin is executive director of the American public health association.

BENJAMIN: Folks with less money - they're going to be in their one home, and they're going to have to deal with the conditions in their one home. And if they're going to be in an area where it's real hot, they're going to have to find other ways to adapt, but they can't escape it.

ANDERSON: The urban poor, already often in hotter environments and already at higher risk for health problems, will have a harder time escaping climate change.

BENJAMIN: It is the most significant public health problem that we have. It's going to be here for a long time, and it's getting worse.

ANDERSON: There are ways to cool down a city - investing in public transit¹⁴, designing roofs that reflect sunlight, planting trees. In Baltimore, city officials are working on planting trees in the city's low-income neighborhoods. The neighborhood where Shakira Franklin lives has increased its tree canopy¹⁵ over time, but in recent years, it's still been among the city's lowest.

FRANKLIN: The city has a lot of responsibility, and I think that we would be close to the bottom of the list, to be honest.

ANDERSON: So she's not waiting. Franklin and the organization where she works as a landscaping crew supervisor¹⁶ are planning to build a splash park in a lot near her house.

FRANKLIN: Our kids - they deserve it. And I just feel like it's a long time coming to just have something to say that we built this here for us. This is ours.

ANDERSON: On a hot Saturday this summer, they threw a party there, complete with a pop-up water fountain for kids to cool off.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Look what I can do.

ANDERSON: But worldwide heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent, and the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Meg Anderson, NPR News.

SHAPIRO: You can see the 97 U.S. cities NPR mapped as part of our investigation into heat, health and income at npr.org. And our City Heat series continues tomorrow with a look at why one of the best ways to combat urban heat is also one of the most challenging to maintain - tree cover.

1 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

2 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

3 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。

6 gasping   

adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词

参考例句：

• He was gasping for breath. 他在喘气。
• "Did you need a drink?""Yes, I'm gasping!” “你要喝点什么吗？”“我巴不得能喝点！”

7 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

8 wheezing   

v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣

参考例句：

• He was coughing and wheezing all night. 他整夜又咳嗽又喘。
• A barrel-organ was wheezing out an old tune. 一架手摇风琴正在呼哧呼哧地奏着一首古老的曲子。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

10 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

11 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

12 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

13 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

14 transit   

n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过

参考例句：

• His luggage was lost in transit.他的行李在运送中丢失。
• The canal can transit a total of 50 ships daily.这条运河每天能通过50条船。

15 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

16 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。