IIT Roorkee Designs India’s First Personalised Heat Risk Alert System
In a significant step toward combating the rising health threats of extreme heat, Indian scientists at IIT Roorkee have developed a personalised early warning system (EWS) that forecasts individual heat stress risks every five days, blending weather data with personal health, lifestyle, and environmental factors.
Unlike existing heatwave alerts that issue blanket warnings, this prototype assigns customised risk scores green (low), yellow (medium), and red (high) based on inputs like age, BMI, income, pre-existing health conditions, occupation, sleep habits, access to cooling, and transport options. Developed by researcher Kshitij Kacker and guided by faculty Mahua Mukherjee and Piyush Srivastava, the model currently operates in Delhi but is designed to be scaled nationally through a...