Environmental Research: Health · Published 2026-03-26 · DOI 10.1088/2752-5309/ae57ca
To determine the association between heat and the number of dispatched calls for police service in Phoenix, AZ, we conducted a time-series study (2016–2023) using routinely collected data on the number of dispatched police calls overall and by incident type (nonviolent, violent, road, domestic, health, sexual, other) linked with daily population-weighted maximum and minimum temperature. We fitted quasi-Poisson regression models adjusted for seasonality and weekly patterns. We analyzed 5240 151 police calls. Dispatched police calls increased almost linearly with higher temperatures, except at extremely high temperatures, where the risk of calls plateaued or even decreased in some cases. Violent, domestic, and health incident-type calls were most responsive to heat, though it was for nonviolent, violent, and other uncategorized calls where the greatest increase in calls was seen. Our findings may be useful in preparing police service responses during periods of greater heat and in helping to inform policies aimed at reducing urban heat.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
Read the article at the publisher →