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It’s been a hot, sticky summer across much of the United States – July was the hottest month in 132 years of record-keeping in the contiguous U.S. For many older adults, extreme temperatures like this are more than uncomfortable; they also come with chronic pain. Yet heat warnings never mention that risk, and the connection doesn’t always come up in medical exams.
Feinuo Sun, who studies demographics and public health at the University of Texas at Arlington, looked at data from 35,000 older Americans across the country and connected extreme local temperatures to reports of chronic pain.
She and her colleague found higher levels of chronic pain with extreme heat in certain places.
Understanding where these places are, and who is most likely to suffer when temperatures spike, can help improve medical care and how communities respond when temperatures spike, she writes.
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