The Heat Pays Later: Long-Term Occupation-Specific Exposure to Extreme Heat and Later-Life Physical Health

• In Event: Contextual Influences on Well-Being Across the Life Course

Abstract

Extreme heat poses health risks to populations, yet how workers experience cumulative exposure to extreme heat over their careers and its long-term health implications remain understudied. To quantify cumulative exposure, I develop a new measure of occupation-specific exposure to extreme heat that integrates individual work histories with occupational heat-risk attributes, place-based ambient temperature conditions, and later-life physical health. Results indicate that spending a larger share of working years (ages 18–60) in high heat-risk occupations during periods of extreme heat is associated with poorer self-rated health, more cardiometabolic conditions, and greater functional limitations after age 60. These associations are robust to adjustments for socioeconomic, demographic, and work-history characteristics. Women and Black workers show modestly worse health outcomes than men and White workers, but only for functional limitations, conditional on higher cumulative exposure. The findings underscore the long-term population health costs of extreme heat, informing both research and public policy agendas.

Author

• Jason Wong, Yale University