Turning Up the Heat: Join PSR PA for National Heat Safety Week

This May, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania is proud to partner with the Alliance for Heat Resilience and Health to support National Heat Safety Week (May 18–22) and bring together organizations, advocates, healthcare professionals, community leaders, and public agencies across Pennsylvania to raise awareness about one of the fastest-growing public health threats of our time: extreme heat.

As climate change drives more frequent, intense, and prolonged heat waves, communities across Pennsylvania are already feeling the effects. Extreme heat is not just uncomfortable, it is deadly. Heat-related illnesses and deaths continue to rise nationwide, disproportionately affecting older adults, outdoor workers, children, people with chronic illnesses, unhoused residents, and low-income communities with limited access to cooling resources. Despite these growing dangers, heat remains one of the most underrecognized public health emergencies facing our communities.

Why Heat Safety Week Matters

Heat impacts nearly every aspect of daily life. It threatens public health, strains healthcare systems, increases utility costs, disrupts workplaces, damages infrastructure, and worsens existing economic and racial inequities. Workers in agriculture, construction, warehousing, landscaping, and delivery services often face dangerous conditions with limited protections. Urban neighborhoods with fewer trees and more pavement can experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding areas, creating “heat islands” that intensify risk.

National Heat Safety Week is an opportunity to elevate awareness, strengthen partnerships, and encourage action at every level: from local governments and healthcare institutions to community organizations and residents.

Join Our Statewide Effort

PSR PA is inviting partners across public health, environmental justice, healthcare, labor, faith communities, local governments, advocacy organizations, and state agencies to participate in Heat Safety Week by:

• Issuing a public statement or proclamation recognizing Heat Safety Week

• Hosting or co-hosting educational events, community conversations, or outreach efforts

• Sharing educational materials and resources with your networks

• Promoting policies and programs that protect residents and workers from extreme heat

• Helping amplify statewide awareness through social media and public engagement

  
  

Organizations can participate in whatever way makes sense for them, whether that means hosting an independent event, partnering with others, or simply helping spread the word.

We encourage partners to sign on and join this growing statewide coalition effort. Sign on here, to join us for Heat Week

Webinar: The Health Impacts of Extreme Heat Heat, Health, and Worker Protections in PennsylvaniaThursday, May 21, 2026 3pm to 4pm EDTRegister for the Webinar Here

As part of Heat Safety Week, PSR PA will host a special webinar bringing together healthcare professionals, public health leaders, and policymakers to discuss the growing impacts of extreme heat in Pennsylvania and the urgent need for stronger protections.

The webinar will feature:

• Joniqua Ceasar — Primary care internist and pediatrician practicing in Philadelphia and board member of PSR PA

• Alex Skula — Program Manager of Public Health Preparedness with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health

• Elizabeth Fiedler — State Representative for Pennsylvania’s 184th District, public health advocate, and prime sponsor of Pennsylvania House Bill 1580, legislation that would establish worker protections from extreme heat-related injury and illness.

The discussion will explore:

• The health impacts of extreme heat

• Community preparedness and resilience strategies

• Heat equity and environmental justice

• Worker safety protections

• State and local policy solutions

  
  

Building a More Heat-Resilient Pennsylvania

This year’s Heat Safety Week comes at a particularly critical moment. Federal climate and public health funding cuts are threatening many of the programs communities rely on to prepare for and respond to extreme heat, even as dangerous temperatures become more common across Pennsylvania and the nation. At the same time, federal legislation aimed at protecting workers from heat-related illness has remained stalled in Congress. The Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act of 2025 would require the development of a national occupational heat safety standard to better protect workers from dangerous heat exposure, but the bill remains pending in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

As federal action remains uncertain, states, municipalities, healthcare institutions, employers, and community organizations have an increasingly important role to play in protecting public health and building climate resilience at the local level.

Here in Pennsylvania, State Representative Elizabeth Fiedler is leading efforts to establish statewide workplace heat protections through House Bill 1580, the Workplace Heat Protection Standards Act. The legislation would require employers to implement common sense heat safety measures including access to water, paid rest breaks, shaded or climate-controlled cooling areas, employee training, emergency response planning, and additional protections during dangerous high-heat conditions. The bill reflects growing recognition that Pennsylvania workers, especially those in construction, agriculture, warehousing, manufacturing, and other high-risk industries, need stronger safeguards as temperatures continue to rise.

Communities across Pennsylvania can also look to Philadelphia’s growing heat resilience efforts as an example of how local governments and public health agencies are responding to the increasing dangers of extreme heat. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has expanded public education campaigns, heat emergency response systems, cooling center access, neighborhood heat vulnerability mapping, and community resilience planning in partnership with the City’s Office of Sustainability. Philadelphia’s Extreme Heat Guide highlights how climate change, historic disinvestment, and urban heat island effects are creating unequal health risks across neighborhoods, which reinforces the need for coordinated public health action at both the local and state levels.

Extreme heat affects all Pennsylvanians, but not equally. Building heat resilience will require collaboration across sectors and communities. By working together during National Heat Safety Week, we can help lift up voices and ensure that residents, workers, and families across the Commonwealth are better informed, better protected, and better prepared.

We hope you will join us in recognizing Heat Safety Week and helping elevate this urgent public health issue across Pennsylvania.

To learn more, sign on as a partner, or discuss collaboration opportunities, please contact Matt Shorraw at PSR PA (matt@psrpa.org) and help spread the word through your networks.