According to Riverside County statistics, 66 people died due to heat-related illnesses in 2024—up from 34 in 2023, 49 in 2022, and 63 in 2021. In 2024 alone, there were 1,627 recorded emergency-department visits in the county due to heat-related illnesses.
Christian Rodriguez Ceja is a community principal at the Coachella office of the Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a nonprofit with expertise in “partnering with people in under-resourced communities to build healthier, more connected neighborhoods and cities.” He said the story of heat-related illnesses goes well beyond these statistics.
“There are farmworkers in the eastern Coachella Valley who go off to work in the summer mornings and work under these very hot conditions, and their bodies are not able to regulate the heat. And then they return to a home that might not be well-insulated and might not have proper cooling equipment. So again, they’re unable to regulate their body temperature. What we know, and what the science tells us, is that when you can’t regulate your body heat, it does some really nasty things to your body.”…