• Kelly K Jones, Varsha Vijay, and Shannon N Zenk.
• Division of Intramural Research, National Institute On Minority Health and Health Disparities, 6707 Democracy Blvd, Suite 800, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA. kelly.jones2@nih.gov.
• J Urban Health. 2024 Sep 24.

AbstractExposure to high environmental temperature is detrimental to health through multiple pathways. This paper describes disparities in school-based high-temperature exposure at metropolitan schools in the United States. Using school location and sociodemographic data from the National Center for Education Statistics, neighborhood data from the US Census Bureau, and land surface temperature (LST) data from the Aqua Earth-observing satellite mission, we find that for every 10% more Black or Hispanic residents in the neighborhood, schools have LST 0.25 °C and 0.38 °C hotter, respectively. When the Black or Hispanic student population is greater than the neighborhood population, LST is an additional 0.20 °C and 0.40 °C for each 10% increase in students over neighborhood population, respectively. Black and Hispanic students are overrepresented in the hottest schools, making up 58.7% of students in the hottest 20% of schools, compared to only 30.0% of students in the coolest 20% of schools.© 2024. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.

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