Heat Wave Exposure of People Serving By the Public Emergency Health System in PAC District

Heat waves is one of the extreme weather events in the world. Most of the studies come from cities located in the North hemisphere and South East Asia while just a few research comes from the South hemisphere, particularly those located in South America. Though they are more frequent and intense in Chile. Heat waves seriously affects people life and the urban infrastructure as emergency health system due to an overload of demanding medical services. Literature recognizes elderly and child as the more vulnerable people for health consequences of heat waves HW. The purpose of the study is to analyse the public provision of medical services in the summer period (December 2018 – March 2019) when WH occurred in the Great Metropolitan Santiago. Statistical methods are used to get association between medical services and HW days disaggregate by age and gender in the district Pedro Aguirre Cerda PAC, which is one of the poorest, high density and elderly residents. Geographical Information Systems are used to locate the public emergency health systems (SAPU) in the district and housing where patient lives. Results show meaningful variations in medical consultations related to HW consequences. Resilient measures focus on those related to the urban environment such as cover land, albedo material, and green roofs to mitigate exposure of resident.