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NCT Number: NCT06971978

Study to Assess the Effectiveness of a Heat Risk Reduction Decision Support Platform and the Barriers and Facilitators of Its Implementation With 30 US Local Health Department Sites

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if an innovative online decision support tool (Chart) that provides localized health risk assessment for extreme heat at the census tract level helps local health departments plan and prepare for extreme heat by identifying risk drivers in their jurisdictions, highlighting interventions that are effective for their jurisdiction's risk profile, and providing information regarding intervention implementation. This trial will evaluate barriers and facilitators of the tool's implementation. The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Does a health department using the tool have better reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of heat-health activities compared with an information-only control? 2. What are the barriers and facilitators of Chart's implementation?

Researchers will compare health departments using Chart to health departments using provided heat-health information only.

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This study is active but is not currently recruiting participants.

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Key information

Conditions

Extreme Heat Behavior Disaster Management Disaster Planning Disasters Emergency Preparedness Extreme Heat Waves Heat Heat Health Risk Reduction Behavior

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington, 98105, United States

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Local (city or county) health department
  • Local (i.e., city or county) health department with at least partial autonomy to pursue the development and implementation of heat-health activities (i.e., not a state where all public health activities are administered at a state level)
  • Availability of a staff member to participate in all elements of the trial. Local health department staff responsible for planning and implementing programming to protect constituents from extreme heat.
  • Adults whose demographics and health status will mirror those of the general population.
  • Current employees of included health departments aged 18 or greater

Exclusion criteria

  • Being in a state where public health activities are exclusively managed at a state level and not having staff availability to participate
  • Children and prisoners

Treatment and study plan

Online decision support platform to support evidence-based heat health risk assessment and extreme heat event preparedness planning

Other

The intervention group will receive facilitated engagement with Chart. Chart is an online decision support platform designed to support evidence-based risk assessment and planning for extreme heat risk mitigation. Chart has a risk assessment platform that provides estimates of heat-health risks at a census tract level under various hazard conditions. It also has a decision support platform that links drivers of risk in a given location with information about potential risk reduction activities and includes information useful to policymakers regarding intervention efficacy, timing, and cost. Facilitated engagement includes an initial introduction to the platform, real-time questions and answers, and focused discussion regarding priority interventions and planning and implementation needs. This engagement comprises about five hours of time that can be provided over the course of a couple weeks or several months, depending on the needs of the health department.

Heat and health risk assessment and preparedness information

Other

Study participants in the control group will be provided with a package of information supportive of heat-health vulnerability and risk assessment and planning for risk reduction activities through built environment hazard mitigation and public health programming. This package will include an annotated list of online resources, including those available on Heat.gov and the CDC website, and a selected set of review papers on heat-health vulnerability, heat-health risk assessment, heat hazard mitigation through built environment strategies, and heat action planning and preparedness.

Primary outcomes

  1. Baseline assessment: demographics

    Time frame: Baseline

    All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to organizational demographics and demographics of the communities that the organization serves.

  2. Baseline assessment: current activities

    Time frame: Baseline

    All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to the organization's current activities relevant to extreme heat, including surveillance and program evaluation activities.

  3. Baseline assessment: implementation factors

    Time frame: Baseline

    All departments will undertake the pre-intervention baseline assessment. The baseline assessment will gather information related to contextual and organizational factors that may affect intervention implementation.

  4. Post-intervention survey: demographics

    Time frame: Eight months after the intervention begins.

    Meaningful changes in the demographics of the organization or service area.

  5. Post-intervention survey: activities

    Time frame: Eight months after the intervention begins.

    The the post-intervention assessment will query participants regarding meaningful changes in the organization's activities and profile (e.g., the occurrence of a regional disaster that disrupted service provision across the organization).

Secondary outcomes

  1. Key informant interviews

    Time frame: The key informant interviews will be completed eight months after the intervention begins.

    Barriers and facilitators of Chart implementation and implementation outcomes using linkages to theoretical frameworks. Investigators will conduct key informant interviews (KIIs) with all 15 of the primary site contacts for the sites randomized to the intervention group. In this case, investigators will reference the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as a source of constructs to measure factors affecting Chart's implementation.

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Washington

Other

Collaborators

  • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

Registry information

Official study title

Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial To Assess the Effectiveness of a Heat Risk Reduction Decision Support Platform and Barriers and Facilitators of Its Implementation

Important dates

Study start
2025
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2027
First posted
May 14, 2025
Registry last updated
Jun 11, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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