A new study shows that death rates in prisons without air conditioning are higher than in institutions with air conditioning.
Texas holds more inmates than any other state and the US has the largest population of prisoners. As climate change continues to increase the severity, frequency, and duration of heat waves, the approximately 160,000 individuals in Texas prisons come under intense physical duress.
Researchers looked at the relationship between heat exposure and mortality risks in Texas prisons, focusing on how these risks vary between prisons with air conditioning and those without it.
281 people died due to extreme heat exposure over the course of a decade, according to the researchers.
A 1 degree increase above 85 degrees can increase the risk of death by 0.7%.
The researchers combined data from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics on mortality in Texas prisons with temperature data from NASA to arrive at their findings.
In Texas prisons without air conditioning, an average of 14 people die each year from heat-related causes, but not a single heat-related death occurs in climate-controlled prisons.
Most of the Texas prisons do not have air conditioning. There was a 30-fold increase in heat-related mortality when compared to estimates of heat-related mortality in the US population.
David Dosa is an associate professor of medicine and health services, policy, and practice at Brown.
Dosa is a geriatrician with appointments at the Providence V.A. Medical Center and Rhode Island Hospital. We can determine how much of a role heat played in someone's death after running these analyses.
Researchers say that an air conditioning policy for Texas prisons may be an important part of protecting the health of people living and working in these facilities.
The organization Texas Prison Community Advocates is one of the additional authors.
The work was supported by two National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The source is Brown University.
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