Heat Related Illness Dashboard
Yearly surveillance for heat-related illnesses is conducted by the Imperial County Public Health Department. Each year data is collected from El Centro Regional Medical Center (ECRMC), Pioneers Memorial Hospital (PMH), and the Imperial County Sheriff’s Coroner Division to monitor heat-related illnesses and deaths due to environmental heat exposure. Exposure to high temperatures can cause serious health problems including heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and death. Certain groups, such as children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with health conditions, are at increased risk.
Additional information about heat illness prevention is available at: https://www.cdc.gov/extreme-heat/about/index.html
To learn more about steps you can take to protect yourself during an extreme heat event, please visit the following resource
Several dashboards include interactive filters and controls, such as:
Date range sliders to view data for specific time periods
Dropdown filters to explore different demographic or exposure categories
Hover functionality to display additional data details
Adjusting these controls will automatically update the charts and visualizations.
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Deaths: Individuals who died due to exposure to high environmental temperatures and have been confirmed by the Imperial County Sheriff’s Coroner Division. Death cases pending review are classified as “probable”.
Heat Stroke: Heat stroke is the most serious heat-related illness. It occurs when the body can no longer control its temperature: the body's temperature rises rapidly, the sweating mechanism fails, and the body is unable to cool down. When heat stroke occurs, the body temperature can rise to 106°F or higher within 10 to 15 minutes. Heat stroke can cause permanent disability or death if the person does not receive emergency treatment.
Heat Exhaustion: Heat exhaustion is the body's response to an excessive loss of water and salt, usually through excessive sweating.
Other Illnesses:
Dehydration: Dehydration occurs when the body loses water content and essential body salts such as sodium and potassium due to overexposure to the sun.
Heat Fatigue: Often characterized by general tiredness and weakness due to prolonged exposure to heat.
Rhabdomyolysis: a medical condition associated with heat stress and prolonged physical exertion. It causes the rapid breakdown, rupture, and death of muscle. When muscle tissue dies, electrolytes and large proteins are released into the bloodstream. This can cause irregular heart rhythms, seizures, and damage to the kidneys.
Heat Syncope: Heat syncope is an episode or dizziness that usually occurs when standing for too long or suddenly standing up after sitting or lying. Factors that may contribute to heat syncope include dehydration and lack of acclimatization.
Heat Cramps: Heat cramps usually affect workers who sweat a lot during strenuous activity. This sweating depletes the body's salt and moisture levels. Low salt levels in muscles cause painful cramps. Heat cramps may also be a symptom of heat exhaustion.
Heat Rash: A skin irritation caused by excessive sweating during hot, humid weather. Red clusters of pimples or small blisters may be found on the neck, chest, groin, under the breasts, and in elbow creases.
Homeless: Individuals who lack permanent housing and live in temporary living accommodations such as living on the streets, in shelters.
Hospitalization: An individual who was admitted to the hospital for at least 24 hours.
High Temperature: The highest recorded ambient temperature of the week for the City of El Centro, the ambient temperature measurement site used by the National Weather Service.
Epidemiological Week: A seven-day period that is grouped around a given period. With the start of the week starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday.
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Weekly heat-related illness (HRI) cases are tracked from April through October each year. This graph displays data for the most recent 90-day period, representing the peak heat season in Imperial County.
Case data are reported by the county’s two local hospitals for emergency department visits and by the Imperial County Coroner’s Office for deaths.
Bars represent the total number of heat-related illness cases reported during each epidemiological week, regardless of residency status.
Bar colors indicate illness classification (see legend):
Other Illnesses (Blue)
Heat Exhaustion (Orange)
Heat Stroke (Purple)
Deaths (Red)
Each bar corresponds to a 7-day reporting period beginning on Sunday.
A dotted line represents the highest recorded weekly temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.
Temperature data are recorded from the monitoring station located in El Centro.
Historically, higher weekly case counts and more severe classifications have occurred during periods of elevated temperatures. Other Illnesses and Heat Exhaustion account for the majority of reported cases during most weeks.
Heat stroke and deaths are less frequent but represent the most severe classifications.
Weekly case counts typically decline later in the season as temperatures decrease.
Heat-related illness may occur even during moderate temperatures depending on duration of exposure, activity level, and individual risk factors.
The bar graphs display heat-related illness (HRI) case counts by demographic category. Users may filter results by Age Group, Race/Ethnicity, and Gender using the dropdown menu. Data reflects cases captured during medical review within the selected reporting period.
Proportion of Characteristics: A corresponding table displays the percentage distribution of cases by the selected demographic category for the chosen date range.
Historically, the largest proportions of reported cases have occurred among adults aged 18–49 and 50–64. Adults aged 65 and older are also represented and may be more vulnerable to heat-related illness due to age-related physiological factors.
Children aged 0–17 represent a smaller proportion of reported cases during most surveillance periods.
Across adult age groups, Heat Exhaustion and Other Illnesses are the most commonly reported classifications.
Users should interpret demographic patterns within the context of environmental conditions and exposure risk during periods of extreme heat.
This graph displays heat-related illness (HRI) cases resulting in hospitalization, categorized by environmental exposure setting at onset: Indoors, Outdoors, or Unknown. Environmental settings may be selected using the dropdown filter.
A hospitalization is defined as an individual admitted to the hospital for at least 24 hours.
Emergency department visit counts are also displayed for the selected date range. These counts represent suspected HRI-related emergency visits across all exposure settings during the surveillance period.
A date range slider below the graph allows users to adjust the reporting timeframe. All displayed data updates based on the selected date range and filters.
Historically, most hospitalized cases have been classified as heat exhaustion or other illnesses. Heat stroke, while less frequent, represents the most severe form of heat-related illness. Deaths associated with hospitalization are also reflected in the data.
The difference between total emergency department visits and hospitalizations indicates that many patients were treated and discharged without extended admission.
Community members experiencing symptoms of heat-related illness should seek appropriate medical care.
Limitations: Considerable effort is taken to report real-time data on the dashboard on a weekly basis, though limitations for final weekly HRI counts may arise depending on reporting case load, common circumstances involving provider late reporting and ICPHD proper case investigation processes. Data used to produce this dashboard is subject to change.
HRI surveillance reports do not reflect a generalized view of severity for the Imperial County population experiencing heat-related illnesses.
Data available is displayed historically; accounts only for the surveillance months that the HRI program was actively being conducted, seasonal data captured for the surveillance periods varied by year depending on the high temperature weather conditions and the number of cases reported by local agencies.
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