With heat becoming deadlier, UCLA mobilizes community health workers as a front line of defense

Extreme heat is now California's deadliest climate risk - triggering up to 1,500 additional ER visits a day in Los Angeles County during major heat waves and killing more residents each year than wildfires or floods.

While local governments expand cooling centers and shade infrastructure, Los Angeles is testing a different kind of heat defense: the people already checking on vulnerable residents behind closed doors.

LARC-HEAT - short for the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative: Heat Education, Ambassadors and Training - is a 30-month outreach initiative led by UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, in collaboration with more than 100 community partners.

Backed by a $3 million state grant, the summer of 2026 marks its last full season of door-to-door outreach in high-risk neighborhoods from Pacoima to Bell Gardens. In 2025, LARC-HEAT trained 124 health workers who attended over 80 events and interacted with more than 7,395 people.

Health care workers as climate infrastructure

Community health workers - the same ones who conduct home visits to connect people to care and resources - have been trained as "heat ambassadors." They learn how chronic illness and heat exposure interact and identify when dehydration could turn dangerous.

"Being out in the field, you see how fast high temperatures become dangerous," said Kimberly, a community health worker in the San Gabriel Valley. "A lot of people don't realize how much heat can affect their health and daily lives - or that it can be just as serious as other health emergencies."

Learn how heat ambassadors mobilize when temperatures spike on the IoES website.