Climate projections indicate that South Asia will face an increasing number of extremely hot days, posing severe direct and indirect threats to human health and livelihoods. However, traditional temperature measurements—whether from weather stations or satellites—fail to capture the localized effects of extreme heat. Enter the Community Heat Adaptation and Treatment Strategies (CommunityHATS) study, an initiative that follows hundreds of women working in the informal economy across a variety of indoor and outdoor environments in South Asia. Led by researchers from Harvard, in collaboration with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, the Centre for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CRDF) at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, the study continuously monitors temperature and humidity around the clock for 13 months to provide a granular understanding of how extreme heat and humidity are truly experienced at the community level.
We spoke with team members Robert Meade, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Felipe González Casabianca, Research Affiliate, who both recently returned from a site visit to Ahmedebad. They share more about the study, and how it provides insight into the broader impacts of heat and temperature on health, wages, mobility, mental well-being, access to livelihoods, and work productivity.
Mittal Institute: This project started with a pilot study of 90 homeworkers in Ahmedabad. Now it’s on its way to tenfold the number of participants and expand to other trades. Can you tell us more about this next step of the project? What exactly does it entail?
Rob Meade and Felipe González Casabianca: Over the past year we’ve gone from designing a research platform to deploying our first sensor ‘bundle’ in a participant’s home, to enrolling 100 home-based garment stitchers and kite makers. The next step of the project is to expand our monitoring to new trades so we can capture the wide range of activities undertaken by SEWA members. Expansion means identifying and enrolling new participants, working with SEWA grassroot leaders in other districts to get them up to speed on study implementation and data collection, and adapting to the study to the unique challenges posed by the new trades. While each trade and district presents new challenges for the project, we’re beginning to see a positive snowball effect in how the Ahmedabad team is leading training in new districts. The small group of sisters we trained last year has now become experts in the project, seamlessly integrating new teams with little assistance from us.
Mittal Institute: What do you expect from this expansion? Just more data? Or a different kind of data?
Robert Meade and Felipe González Casabianca: It’s a little bit of both – the measurements are the same. We want to know the thermal conditions experienced by women in their homes and workspaces and how those exposures impact their physiology, productivity, and wellbeing. What’s new is the context – rather than these being homeworkers, our new trades are farmers and glass bangle factory workers. So, were collecting more of the same kind of data, but the exposures and responses of the participants we are expecting will be quite different!
Mittal Institute: How do/did SEWA and your team select the trades and exact participants?
Robert Meade and Felipe González Casabianca: As always, it was a collaborative process. SEWA has identified a series of trades they feel are most at risk for heat stress. With this list we work as a team to identify which trades make sense to target, both in terms of need but also feasibility. Once we have the trades identified, SEWA invites participants to enroll in the study. Who gets invited is random to ensure that everyone has the same chance to participate.
Mittal Institute: How do you ensure that data from various settings (different trades, different living and working conditions, different climates within Gujarat) is comparable to earlier data that you gathered?
Robert Meade and Felipe González Casabianca: We ensure that the data is comparable by standardizing procedures as much as possible. All study teams receive the same training and Felipe and I are constantly working on the study platform to ensure things are consistent and running smoothly. That said, we are actually hoping there will be variation in working and living conditions and were collecting as much information on these factors as possible. That way, we can explore differences between trades, personal and housing characteristics, and different patterns of heat exposure.
Mittal Institute: Can you share some insights and memories from your February trip to Ahmedabad?
Robert Meade: The highlight for me was just how far we’ve come in a little under a year. The grass root leaders – the SEWA members responsible for implementing the study – are now experts in sensors, wearables, and collecting physiological data. Everyone is really enjoying the process, and we have developed a great working relationship between our team, SEWA, our partners at CEPT university, the participants – everybody. Thanks to Felipe, I know more about coding and data engineering than I ever thought I would. Just been an incredible learning experience overall!
Felipe González Casabianca: I agree with Rob—it’s incredibly rewarding to see how smoothly the team now operates within the project. Specially the grassroots leaders, but also all the participants we’ve engaged with. House visits are always one of the best parts of our trips. Each participants makes us feel extremely welcomed, and as time goes by, we’re getting to interact more and more with familiar faces.
On a personal note, on the last night of the trip, during our dinner at Remaben’s house (the union director), I was asked to sing. Never in my life did I imagine I’d find myself “performing” a Colombian pop ballad in front of a courtyard full of Indian women on a Tuesday night in Ahmedabad.
☆ The views represented herein are those of the interview subject and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Mittal Institute, its staff, or its Steering Committee.
