ABSTRACT
Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and negative impact of urban heat events, prompting the need to develop preparedness and adaptation strategies that reduce the harmful effects of extreme heat. This study presents a review of literature on the social vulnerability to heat-related disasters in the United States with specific focus on the works that provide various methods to define and quantify social vulnerability as well as the ones that discuss the relationship between vulnerability and resilience. The studies reviewed here show that as heat vulnerability varies spatially, improving the resilience of communities and their members at all levels of governance calls for locally designed, collaborative, and multidisciplinary mitigation plans and strategies.
