Brigham, IBM's AI tool could help warn Boston's hottest neighborhoods of heat waves

Axios

6 days ago

While a heat wave smothers Boston, researchers are developing a tool to warn people of heat emergencies and the risks they face sooner.
Why it matters: Some Boston neighborhoods — known as "urban heat islands" — are scorching by the time the sensor at Logan Airport notifies forecasters and city leaders of a heat emergency.
Driving the news: A team at Brigham and Women's Hospital and IBM is building an AI-driven tool that would identify high temperatures in urban heat islands sooner and offer suggestions on how to cool down.
That could mean going to a cooling center or an air-conditioned library building nearby, says Paul Biddinger, chief preparedness and continuity officer at Mass General Brigham, who is leading the project.
The team envisions the tool warning community health center patients of heat emergencies, especially those who may be at high risk, without compromising sensitive health data.
What they're saying: "People don't know when they're at higher risk often," Biddinger tells Axios.
Take water pills for heart failure? Got chronic lung or kidney conditions? You're at higher risk, Biddinger wrote Tuesday.
Take SSRIs for depression? You, too.
Zoom out: The coastal Northeast is heating faster than most regions in North America, per UMass research.
But many homes lack updated infrastructure or were designed to trap heat to keep residents warm in the winter.
More people will become vulnerable to extreme heat risks as climate change worsens, doctors and researchers say.
Threat level: The state estimated last year that at least 30 people have died from extreme heat here in the past decade, and that doesn't take into account the thousands who have been hospitalized since 2000.
Pockets of Dorchester, South Boston, Chinatown and Roxbury see higher temperatures than neighboring areas.
Yes, but: The AI tool is still in development, Biddinger says.
The team plans to launch a prototype in multiple languages before next summer and a final version by 2027.
Reality check: In the meantime, Bostonians will have to take the forecast with a grain of salt (or round up the temperature), depending on where they live.