Hospital resource deficits in climate vulnerable United States counties: insights from a national survey

Background: The recently published Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) gives us a comprehensive overview of the counties that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Understanding the health care delivery characteristics in these vulnerable communities may help to anticipate and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. In this setting, we sought to assess hospital characteristics in the most climate-vulnerable counties in the United States. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using county-level data from the CVI [2017–2019] to stratify counties into quintiles of climate vulnerability. These data were linked with hospital characteristics from the American Hospital Association survey [2016] and population characteristics from the American Community Survey [2021]. We analyzed the hospital and demographic characteristics of the most climate vulnerable counties. Results: Hospitals in the most climate-vulnerable counties are significantly more likely to be located in rural areas (34% vs. 24%, P