September 2025 Swetland Seminar || Intersections of Redlining, UrbanHeat, and Children’s Health

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Join us for the monthly Swetland Seminar Series, a free learning opportunity open to the public, focused on environmental health. Learn more at case.edu/swetland.

Intersections of Redlining, Urban Heat, and Children’s Health

Urban heat islands (UHIs)—areas with elevated temperatures due to dense built environments—intensify during extreme heat events, which are the leading cause of summertime morbidity and mortality. These effects disproportionately impact under-resourced communities in the United States (U.S.). A key contributor to this inequity is redlining, a racially discriminatory federal housing policy from the 1930s-40s that denied home loans in neighborhoods with higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities. This policy institutionalized disinvestment in “red-lined” areas, shaping contemporary disparities in housing quality, green space access, and environmental exposures, all of which are linked to adverse health outcomes such as asthma and heat-related emergency department (ED) visits. In this talk, preliminary findings will be presented on how racialized housing policies and urban heat intersect to shape pediatric asthma patterns in New York State (NYS), with the goal of informing climate adaptation and equity-focused interventions.

Presenter: Eun Kyung Lee, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
State University of New York
College of Environmental Science & Forestry
Website: https://www.esf.edu/faculty/lee/index.php

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