Study to Assess the Effectiveness of a Heat Risk Reduction Decision Support Platform and the Barriers and Facilitators of Its Implementation With 30 US Local Health Department Sites

NCT06971978 | Active Not Recruiting

• 2 other identifiers: STUDY000209441P20ES036748-01
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 30
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if an innovative online decision support tool (Chart) that provides localized health risk assessment for extreme heat at the census tract level helps local health departments plan and prepare for extreme heat by identifying risk drivers in their jurisdictions, highlighting interventions that are effective for their jurisdiction's risk profile, and providing information regarding intervention implementation. This trial will evaluate barriers and facilitators of the tool's implementation. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. 1.Does a health department using the tool have better reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of heat-health activities compared with an information-only control?
2. 2.What are the barriers and facilitators of Chart's implementation?

Conditions

Extreme Heat; Heat Health; Extreme Heat Waves; Heat; Disaster Management; Disaster Planning; Disasters; Emergency Preparedness

Keywords

heat; extreme heat event; climate; risk reduction

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (5)

• Baseline assessment: demographics

  All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to organizational demographics and demographics of the communities that the organization serves.

  Baseline

• Baseline assessment: current activities

  All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to the organization's current activities relevant to extreme heat, including surveillance and program evaluation activities.

  Baseline

• Baseline assessment: implementation factors

  All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to contextual and organizational factors that may affect intervention implementation.

  Baseline

• Post-intervention survey: demographics

  Meaningful changes in the demographics of the organization or service area.

  Eight months after the intervention begins.

• Post-intervention survey: activities

  The the post-intervention assessment will query participants regarding meaningful changes in the organization's activities and profile (e.g., the occurrence of a regional disaster that disrupted service provision across the organization).

  Eight months after the intervention begins.

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Key informant interviews

  The key informant interviews will be completed eight months after the intervention begins.

Study Arms (2)

Intervention group

EXPERIMENTAL

The intervention group will receive facilitated engagement with Chart. Chart is an online decision support platform designed to support evidence-based climate change adaptation. Chart has a risk assessment platform that provides estimates of heat-health risks at a census tract level under various hazard conditions. It also has a decision support platform that links drivers of risk in a given location with information about potential risk reduction activities and includes information useful to policymakers regarding intervention efficacy, timing, and cost. Facilitated engagement includes an initial introduction to the platform, real-time questions and answers, and focused discussion regarding priority interventions and planning and implementation needs. This engagement comprises about five hours of time that can be provided over the course of a couple weeks or several months, depending on the needs of the health department.

Other: Online decision support platform to support evidence-based heat health risk assessment and extreme heat event preparedness planning

Control group

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Study participants in the control group will be provided with a package of information supportive of heat-health vulnerability and risk assessment and planning for risk reduction activities through built environment hazard mitigation and public health programming. This package will include an annotated list of online resources, including those available on Heat.gov and the CDC website, and a selected set of review papers on heat-health vulnerability, heat-health risk assessment, heat hazard mitigation through built environment strategies, and heat action planning and preparedness.

Other: Heat and health risk assessment and preparedness information

Interventions

Heat and health risk assessment and preparedness information OTHER

Study participants in the control group will be provided with a package of information supportive of heat-health vulnerability and risk assessment and planning for risk reduction activities through built environment hazard mitigation and public health programming. This package will include an annotated list of online resources, including those available on Heat.gov and the CDC website, and a selected set of review papers on heat-health vulnerability, heat-health risk assessment, heat hazard mitigation through built environment strategies, and heat action planning and preparedness.

Control group

Online decision support platform to support evidence-based heat health risk assessment and extreme heat event preparedness planning OTHER

The intervention group will receive facilitated engagement with Chart. Chart is an online decision support platform designed to support evidence-based risk assessment and planning for extreme heat risk mitigation. Chart has a risk assessment platform that provides estimates of heat-health risks at a census tract level under various hazard conditions. It also has a decision support platform that links drivers of risk in a given location with information about potential risk reduction activities and includes information useful to policymakers regarding intervention efficacy, timing, and cost. Facilitated engagement includes an initial introduction to the platform, real-time questions and answers, and focused discussion regarding priority interventions and planning and implementation needs. This engagement comprises about five hours of time that can be provided over the course of a couple weeks or several months, depending on the needs of the health department.

Intervention group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Local (city or county) health department
• Local (i.e., city or county) health department with at least partial autonomy to pursue the development and implementation of heat-health activities (i.e., not a state where all public health activities are administered at a state level)
• Availability of a staff member to participate in all elements of the trial. Local health department staff responsible for planning and implementing programming to protect constituents from extreme heat.
• Adults whose demographics and health status will mirror those of the general population.
• Current employees of included health departments aged 18 or greater

You may not qualify if:

• Being in a state where public health activities are exclusively managed at a state level and not having staff availability to participate
• Children and prisoners

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS): collaborator
• University of Washington: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington, 98105, United States

Location

Related Publications (1)

• Hess J, Burden M, Isaksen TMB, Ebi KL, Errett NA, Gridley-Smith C, Kramer CB, McCarthy C, McLaughlin O, Patel R, Reed A, Smith MH, Wheat S, Sherr K. Pilot randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a heat risk reduction decision support platform and barriers and facilitators of its implementation. Implement Sci Commun. 2025 Nov 27;6(1):136. doi: 10.1186/s43058-025-00829-3.

  PMID: 41310808 DERIVED

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Risk Reduction Behavior

Interventions

Hot Temperature; Risk Assessment

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavior

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Temperature; Thermodynamics; Physical Phenomena; Weather; Atmosphere; Environment; Ecological and Environmental Phenomena; Biological Phenomena; Meteorological Concepts; Environment and Public Health; Risk; Probability; Statistics as Topic; Epidemiologic Methods; Investigative Techniques; Risk Management; Organization and Administration; Health Services Administration; Health Care Evaluation Mechanisms; Quality of Health Care; Health Care Quality, Access, and Evaluation; Epidemiologic Measurements; Public Health

Study Officials

• Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH

  University of Washington

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: May 6, 2025
• First Posted: May 14, 2025
• Study Start: December 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2027
• Last Updated: May 5, 2026

Record last verified: 2025-07

Locations

US (1)