Socioeconomic and Environmental Determinants of Heat Vulnerability in Prague, Czechia

Climate change is highly likely to increase both the frequency and severity of heatwaves, posing a significant challenge to global health. Heatwaves are associated with an increased risk of human mortality, particularly during extreme events that exceed local acclimatization thresholds. However, the impact of heatwaves is not uniformly distributed across all populations. Certain demographic groups, especially the elderly and children, are at a higher risk due to physiological and socioeconomic factors. Moreover, the literature indicates that environmental and socioeconomic factors, such as access to green spaces and income level, also play a crucial role in determining vulnerability to heatwaves. These factors are known to affect thermal comfort, thereby influencing the ability of individuals to cope with extreme heat. Therefore, to mitigate heat-related health outcomes, it is necessary to evaluate the heat vulnerability of districts in Prague and identify where mitigation measures and interventions are most urgently required. 

We use geographically weighted principal components analysis (GWPCA) to determine the role of meteorological (mean summer air temperature, mean number of heatwave days), environmental (proportion and type of greenery, urban coverage ratio), and socioeconomic factors (demographic structure, unemployment rate, mean income) on heat vulnerability (daily heat-related mortality and ambulance call outs spanning the period 2001–2023) in 22 districts of Prague, Czechia. To investigate the influence of air temperature, we utilize a novel ALADIN/CLIMATE-CZ reanalysis with high spatial resolution (2.3 x 2.3 km). Finally, a multivariate meta-regression model is used to determine the risk of mortality and ambulance call-outs associated with high temperature in each district, taking into account the modifying effect of the district characteristics (i.e., principal components from the GWPCA).

Our findings will provide new insights to the heat vulnerability assessment in Prague and will enable us to determine the most at-risk areas of Prague regarding its population structure and environmental conditions. The study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the underlying drivers of heat vulnerability in Prague and informs targeted interventions to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat on vulnerable populations.