SchoolHEAT: Racial and Ethnic Inequity in School Temperature

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health
• Urban Climatology
• Educational Equity

Background:

• High environmental temperatures pose significant health risks.
• Understanding disparities in heat exposure is crucial for public health.
• School environments can be critical sites for heat exposure assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate disparities in school-based high-temperature exposure in U.S. metropolitan areas.
• To quantify the relationship between neighborhood and student demographics and land surface temperature (LST) at schools.
• To determine if minority students are overrepresented in hotter school environments.

Main Methods:

• Utilized school location and sociodemographic data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
• Incorporated neighborhood data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Analyzed land surface temperature (LST) data from the Aqua Earth-observing satellite mission.

Main Results:

• A 10% increase in Black or Hispanic neighborhood residents correlated with 0.25°C and 0.38°C hotter LST, respectively.
• When minority student populations exceeded neighborhood proportions, LST increased by an additional 0.20°C (Black) and 0.40°C (Hispanic) per 10% increase.
• Black and Hispanic students comprised 58.7% of students in the hottest 20% of schools, versus 30.0% in the coolest 20%.

Conclusions:

• Significant disparities exist in school-based heat exposure linked to race and ethnicity.
• Neighborhood and school demographics are key predictors of elevated LST at educational facilities.
• Minority students face a disproportionately higher risk of exposure to extreme heat in their school environments.