Aging Less: The Longevity Science Insights Podcast · Life Management Science Labs

Rajib Dasgupta: Coping with Rising Temperatures | Aging Less #32

·59 min·4 clips

Rajib Dasgupta argues that heat should be treated as a chronic or slow disaster, not only an episodic emergency.

1. Aging Less: The Longevity Science Insights Podcast examines coping with rising temperatures and heat stress under climate change. 2. Host Marie Stella interviews Rajib Dasgupta, a public-health physician and professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. 3. The episode asks how research, health systems, workplaces, and communities can reduce heat-related risks while temperatures rise. 4. Dasgupta describes a Wellcome Trust grant that began in 2023 across nine Global South countries. 5. The Indian project compares Bhubaneswar in Odisha, where heat and humidity are high, with Jaipur in Rajasthan, near India's desert region. 6. Researchers prioritise elderly people, outdoor workers, and young school-going children as three vulnerable groups. 7. The project combines quantitative and qualitative baseline studies with intervention design and planned evaluation over roughly three years. 8. Dasgupta says heat waves are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, while night temperatures and humidity also raise health risks. 9. He identifies heat rash, cramps, exhaustion, heat stroke, hospitalisation, and deaths involving respiratory, cardiovascular, and renal conditions. 10. The project examines India's national sample surveys alongside weather data to compare summer and non-summer illnesses, costs, and treatment choices. 11. Dasgupta says sleep loss among children was an unexpected finding emerging from the project's baseline work. 12. He connects unhealthy sleep in children with cardiometabolic risk factors including obesity, high blood pressure, and impaired fasting glucose. 13. Researchers and scholars cited by Dasgupta associate inadequate sleep in adolescents with depression, anxiety, aggression, and ADHD. 14. Heat can reduce outdoor play, increase indoor screen time, and limit children's contact with peers, teachers, and stimulating play environments. 15. Dasgupta notes that changing work or school hours can reduce heat exposure but can also affect productivity, employers, income, and timelines. 16. He says public responses include drinking water in public spaces, stronger heat-illness surveillance, frontline medical equipment, and improved cooling capacity. 17. Dasgupta argues that prolonged heat exposure is unsafe, particularly for people with hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease. 18. He proposes treating heat as a chronic or slow disaster and compares the needed system-wide recalibration with responses to COVID-19. 19. Public-health researchers studying heat, sleep, and climate adaptation. 20. Listeners seeking only individual cooling tips may skip the policy analysis.

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