Racism makes heat waves more dangerous for black New Yorkers, city says

Black New Yorkers are more likely to fall ill during heat waves due to “structural racism,” the city’s Department of Health says.

A Thursday letter from officials to medical workers warns that extreme heat “is the deadliest type of extreme weather” and that black people are twice as likely to die from heat stroke as white people in the Big Apple.

Most people that succumb to hyperthermia in the city do not have air conditioning in their home and suffer from existing medical conditions, officials wrote.

“Structural racism and the resulting social and economic inequities,” make it more likely that people of color fit into those categories, wrote Assistant Commissioner Carolyn Olson, and Child Care Data Analytics Director Madhury Ray.

The memo was sent the same day the city comptroller released a report finding that the neighborhoods most vulnerable to heat — like East Flatbush, Corona and Kingsbridge Heights — were the least served by cooling centers.

Historically redlined neighborhoods across the country that are currently home to a large black population can be 13 degrees hotter than majority of white neighborhoods, a 2020 study found.

The disparity is partially due to a lack of trees and parks to deflect and absorb the glaring sun — and because the areas are a farther distance from water compared to leafier affluent areas.

There are about 370 deaths connected to heat every summer in the city, according to DOH statistics. Most of them happen when the heat worsens other medical problems and 10 are due to heat stroke on average, officials say.

While the city was not technically in a heat wave Saturday — defined as three consecutive days above 90 degrees — temperatures had hovered right around that threshold and were expected to be in the 90s through at least Wednesday, forecasters said.