Poster #101 - Heat, Aging, and Adaptation: How State Energy Policy Shapes Climate Vulnerability in an Aging America

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Introduction/Background. Over 55 million Americans are now aged 65 and older, and this number is accelerating. This is the age group most likely to die from cardiovascular heat stress, yet most climate adaptation research treats the exposed population as demographically stable. At the same time, states vary enormously in what their residents pay for electricity, the primary input to the air conditioning that keeps elderly people alive during heat waves. Whether these state-level differences in energy costs are producing divergent adaptation outcomes is a question with immediate consequences for how states design energy assistance, utility regulation, and public health preparedness as the federal government steps back.

Purpose/Research Question. This paper asks two questions. First, has adaptation to extreme heat among the elderly kept pace with the rapid aging of the US population? Second, do state-level electricity costs determine how fast that adaptation proceeds? The answer decides whether programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program should be evaluated as antipoverty transfers or as frontline climate adaptation policy.

Data. The analysis uses 25 years of county-level data (2000 to 2024) across 3,135 US counties, combining age-specific cardiovascular mortality from the CDC, daily temperature from NOAA, demographic composition from the American Community Survey, and state residential electricity prices from the Energy Information Administration.

Research Design and Methods. The identification strategy compares how heat shocks affect cardiovascular mortality for the elderly versus working-age adults within the same county and year, tracking whether that gap has closed over time. The most demanding specification absorbs state-by-year-by-age fixed effects, isolating the age-specific adaptation channel from concurrent state-level changes in Medicaid, hospital capacity, and health policy.

Results/Findings. In states with cheaper electricity, elderly heat vulnerability has fallen faster. The triple interaction of heat exposure, electricity price, and elderly population share is precisely estimated and robust. Nationally, the elderly-working-age vulnerability gap is closing by 0.56 deaths per 100,000 per year. Adaptation has more than offset the mechanical increase in vulnerability from population aging: approximately 4,400 fewer excess cardiovascular deaths occurred in hot years than would have under 2000 demographics.

Conclusion/Implications. These findings carry three direct implications for state policy. LIHEAP is not merely antipoverty spending; it is climate adaptation targeted at the highest-risk demographic group. States with expensive electricity are sustaining a measurable adaptation gap that manifests as excess elderly mortality during hot summers. And climate damage projections that ignore differential adaptation by age group are overstating future costs, misinforming the policy decisions that states are now being asked to make on their own.

Author

• Muiz A Olasupo, University at Buffalo
  Presenting Author