As part of a year-long global research project on how heat is affecting vulnerable communities across the globe, residents in Ahmedabad have been given smartwatches to monitor their bodily reactions to the blazing heat.
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The Ahmedabad study is only one part of a global research project examining how heat is affecting poor, vulnerable communities in four cities across the world. Researchers also are measuring heat impacts using smartwatches and other devices in Africa's Burkina Faso, the Pacific island of Niue near New Zealand and in the Sonoran desert region in Mexico.
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In Ahmedabad, Bunker, along with researchers at the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, is constantly collecting relevant health data.
If they find that cool roofs effectively reduce indoor heat, they plan to paint the roofs of all the homes. Researchers hope their study leads to more use of solutions like cool roofs for poor, vulnerable populations around the world - and that policymakers will factor in such solutions when deciding how their countries and communities can adapt to increasing heat exposure.
For now, Vanzara Vas residents like Chunara and her neighbor, Shantaben Vanzara, said they will take any help they can get. Shantaben Vanzara said the heat has made her diabetes worse, but being part of the study has provided her family some respite. "We don't get to sleep because of the heat," she said. "After the roof got painted, we can sleep for a few hours a night at least."
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