--- title: What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat description: Heat adaptation rarely reaches the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk bear the price themselves, writes Satchit Balsari. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/ author: Satchit Balsari article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-19T10:00:03.823Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-19T10:00:04.062Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat og:description: Heat adaptation rarely reaches the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk bear the price themselves, writes Satchit Balsari. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat twitter:description: Heat adaptation rarely reaches the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk bear the price themselves, writes Satchit Balsari. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- IDEAS Time ideas # What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: One Hot Day: a Short Documentary About Heat and Health [Watch (HLS stream): One Hot Day: a Short Documentary About Heat and Health](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/of7BeJ4I.m3u8) (20:26)  _Published 2026-09-16. A new study looks at the the how the impact of high temperatures affects the body over time. Produced by Julie Winokur & Ed Kashi/Talking Eyes Media. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center._ by [Satchit Balsari](https://time.com/author/satchit-balsari/) ## Satchit Balsari Satchit Balsari is associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator of the Community Heat Treatment and Adaptation Strategy Study run by SEWA and an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Harvard. Sep 19, 2026 10:00 AM UTC Video: ONE HOT DAY, produced by Julie Winokur & Ed Kashi / Talking Eyes Media. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. by [Satchit Balsari](https://time.com/author/satchit-balsari/) ## Satchit Balsari Satchit Balsari is associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator of the Community Heat Treatment and Adaptation Strategy Study run by SEWA and an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Harvard. Sep 19, 2026 10:00 AM UTC On Sept. 2, 2026, the United Nations Environment Program report,[ Limiting Overshoot](https://www.unep.org/resources/limiting-overshoot-navigating-exceedance), declared that the world has fallen short of keeping global warming to [1.5°C above pre-industrial levels](https://time.com/7382950/climate-change-speeding-up-science/), and that urgent action is needed to course-correct. That same week, NPR[ reported](https://www.npr.org/2026/09/04/nx-s1-5945241/a-new-investigation-shows-heat-is-even-deadlier-than-we-thought) that extreme heat killed nearly five times as many people in the United States as official records indicated. These findings followed two consecutively brutal summers. Death counts from heatwaves across Europe dominated[ news cycles](https://time.com/article/2026/06/23/heatwave-europe-record-high-temperatures-deadly-extreme-heat-stress-safety/) this year as the continent’s aging infrastructure struggled to cool down. “Heat domes” trapped heat [across the United States](https://time.com/article/2026/06/29/extreme-heat-wave-dome-high-temperatures-us-fourth-july-explainer/). But merely counting deaths from heat risks missing its impact on human life. Each heat dome in the U.S. affected over [100 million people](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/29/weather/record-heat-wave-us-east-climate-hnk). Among them were construction workers, [outdoor workers](https://time.com/6299091/extreme-heat-us-workers-economy/), delivery workers in unairconditioned cabs, farm workers, the unhoused, the [poor](https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/the-cost-of-extreme-heat-is-displacement/) who could not afford [air conditioning](https://time.com/article/2026/06/11/how-climate-change-is-making-your-life-more-expensive/), those on [medications](https://time.com/6202849/extreme-heat-health-risks/) on whom the impact of heat was amplified, those with [mental health](https://time.com/6280073/how-heatwaves-impact-your-brain/) disorders, and those with little or no access to healthcare. According to the International Labor Organization,[ billions](https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/tripartite-experts-agree-measures-protect-workers-and-enterprises-weather) of workers around the world are exposed to extreme heat every year. While the vast majority of them do not die, many [suffer deeply](https://clje.law.harvard.edu/heat-worker-safety/) from the arduous ignominy of a life exposed to heat, day and night, year after year. While counting deaths from heat is an imperfect science, the quantification of heat’s impact on mental health, physical well-being, wages, food security, habitat, and infrastructure is even more complex. One thousand women working in India’s informal labor economy have set out to quantify this burden—to understand what impact the heat and humidity in their lived environments at home and at work have on their health, wages, and well-being. Partnering with our team at [Harvard](https://mittalsouthasiainstitute.harvard.edu/climate/), the [Self Employed Women’s Association](https://www.sewa.org/) in India has recruited women from trades including street vendors, waste recyclers, home-based artisans, and farmers to participate in the Community Heat Adaptation and Treatment Strategies ([CommHATS](https://home.community-hats.net/)) study. For 13 months, each woman is equipped with a wrist wearable, microsensors measuring heat and humidity at home and workplaces, labs measuring critical biomarkers, and surveys documenting home and work layouts, wellbeing, and wages. Considered together, this data constructs one of the world’s largest such databases of the impact of heat on human health. Building on prior work that has shown that long exposure to heat impacts multiple organ systems, including the [heart and kidneys](https://time.com/6294155/heat-stroke-risks/), the CommHATS project seeks to address unanswered questions in our attempts to adapt to extreme heat: How do we know if cool roofs work? What should our metric of success be? If the temperature drops a bit, but I still cannot sleep restfully, is the intervention valid? What should the threshold for a new heat insurance product be: the temperature at the airport where the weather station is, or the temperature in my home, which is actually how hot I feel? In India, where over half of women of reproductive age are [anemic](https://www.sansad.in/getFile/annex/270/AU425%5FMIrPYP.pdf?source=pqars), how does heat further [stress their hearts](https://time.com/3729021/7-things-mess-with-heartbeat/)? Through community meetings and WhatsApp groups, research findings are regularly shared with all participants, who routinely ask how the data will help improve their lives. Early findings, which we will share at[ New York Climate Week](https://salatainstitute.harvard.edu/user%5Fevents/harvard-climate-week-nyc-2/), reveal devastating wage losses on hot days, shortened sleep spans, and high cardiac stress. This kind of relentless, unforgiving heat forces a different kind of reckoning that goes beyond OSHA regulations and market solutions. In places like India, where around [90% of workers](https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/India%20Employment%20-%20web%5F8%20April.pdf) are informally employed, there is no employer to hold accountable. The poor have no choice but to adapt. They change working hours at the cost of childcare. They reallocate savings to protect health and wages. They buy water jugs to carry potable water, and awnings to create shade, and ice chests to cool their produce. The woefully underfunded global financial instruments for heat adaptation have no existing structural mechanism to actually reach the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk[ bear the price themselves](https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.01671). The CommHATS project is implemented daily by grassroots workers, a testament to its ease of use. They check on the sensors and the wearables, and most importantly, the participating workers. The participants are invested in the questions, the tools, and the analysis. The tool is thus built for scale and can help communities anywhere in the world understand what their environmental exposure is at an actionable scale that is relevant to decision-making. It helps measure exposure as well as the efficacy of interventions. In our study, we find that the cost of our collective inaction is already being borne by those whose lives are already stressed. The human spirit is resilient, and perhaps life goes on. But in this warming world, life is compromised and diminished. Millions may still live through extreme heat and not yet enter the death counts, but they cannot thrive. [TIME Ideas](https://www.time.com/ideas) hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. ## Transcript The extreme heat warning is out there. India is reeling under an intense heat wave, the hottest. Day France has ever recorded. In Germany, in Spain, in Italy, red alert. Japan's weather agencies declaring the heat wave a natural disaster. Extreme heat is a serious threat, with over half a million lives lost every year. Authorities are advising people to avoid stepping out during peak hours. Chosen. By. Barack. Obama. To. We. Come to. Know. That. The globe is heating up. India is heating up. But most of our understanding of how heat impacts the body comes from laboratory studies. What we don't really have is an understanding of how, when we experience heat over entire summers into monsoon periods, how these impact the people who are most exposed and also less able to cope with changing temperatures. We are actually hitting the limit. And the worst part is, the ones who are not the creators of the problem are suffering from the problem. Or use garam hota hai hum bhi nahi sakte hai. As of now, all the quantitative data that exists is done in the lab settings, and that too with male personas. So the heat sensor study is basically a measure to quantify and quantify the impacts of heat on informal sector women workers. This is called the Community Hats Research Project. We are working with an informal trade union called the Self-Employed Women's Association and collecting data on the heat exposures they experience throughout the year, both in their homes and at work, and then seeing how those exposures actually affect their physiology, their health, their earnings, their well-being. Do A. Fitbit. Pattern. Or. Hard. Or. Mobile to. Mobile. Data. So far, we've enrolled near 400 participants. The goal of the study is to collect for the first time granular physiological data. But over the entire range of exposures that people experience through their daily lives. Sensor study. A sensor. And a sensor to. Answer. The challenge. I'm a data collector. This is the big novelty of the study. We're actually following the participants for 13 months. And the idea here was most of our understanding of physiology comes from very short exposures, typically no more than about a week. But there's increasing concern that some of the most extreme effects of heat are not accrued just in within a single workday or a single exposure. It's actually the build up over time. A time. Moto. Moto. My stitching. Machine. My. Main stitch. Or. Cha cha. Should be complete. A few key insights from the study already. Because of the way the homes are built, they trap heat and in fact, the heat index within some of the homes we've measured is about ten degrees Celsius, about 18°F higher than outdoor conditions. Skin problems or. Health. Problems. Pressure down. Nahi sakte hai or bahari nahi. What we're seeing is a very non-linear relationship between the heat exposure and how it impacts the participants hearts. That's what I mean by that. There is a range of temperatures where the heart responds, but it's relatively stable. But then we see this kind of inflection point as it gets really hot. And essentially the heart rate starts to increase very rapidly. If you think of a high heart rate, maybe as a heart rate, more than 100 beats a minute, the women spend about three hours a day more in what you call tachycardia in the hotter conditions versus the cooler conditions. And. Skin infection. Urine or periods. Or dehydration. Skin. If we talk about a street vendor, they'll suffer from hypertension, skin blisters, and the goods that they have, the quality deteriorates. And I saw. A reason that these kind of studies hasn't been done is not because someone didn't think it was important, but because we just didn't have the technology. Most of the equipment, particularly the Fitbits and some of the environmental sensors, are not designed to function. Working hard in a farm field in India. Some of the real big challenges from the start were how we would, with very little input from researchers, collect this data, at this granularity, at this scale. We put a lot of work into developing a platform that a health worker from an informal trade union could pick up and use relatively easily. Of course, with some training. And then it was building the trust with the union. And just to show the grassroot leaders from Seva, as well as the participants, that we were here to try to collect data that would in some way help them with their struggles against heat. Study the. Data. Collect. Tried. To take the camera away or a recording. Or. A satellite connected. To. It. We are hoping that this data will be taken. As far as it's possible to impact the way we're thinking about protections against heat, particularly for informal workforces. The goal is to leave it to Siva, provide them with the data that they need to argue for better conditions, whether it's the International Labor Organization or with the Indian government. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. Limbo. We have realized that it's not only the maximum daytime temperature, but it's the night time temperature. It's the humidity. All this put together cumulates and compounds the impact of heat. You're always returning home to a hot environment and you're trying to recover for the next work day. You go out in a kind of a physiologically depleted state, and that just kind of builds up over time. And take them. Like I. Said. There's a lot of different interventions being proposed. Do you paint your roof white? Do you shift your work hours to times of the day? With the platform we've developed, we'll be able to see. Well, if we paint the roof white, how much does it reduce indoor temperature at night? And does that reduction actually improve outcomes? Does it, you know, allow workers to sleep better? Does it improve earnings? And so we're really hoping this is going to be a more generalizable way to actually test interventions in the very populations that they're recommended to be applied. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/"},"headline":"What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat","datePublished":"2026-09-19T10:00:03.823Z","dateModified":"2026-09-19T10:00:04.062Z","description":"Heat adaptation rarely reaches the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk bear the price themselves, writes Satchit Balsari.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/","keywords":["health","climate"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Satchit Balsari","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/satchit-balsari/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health/","name":"health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/","name":"What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"One Hot Day: a Short Documentary About Heat and Health","description":"A new study looks at the the how the impact of high temperatures affects the body over time. 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