How an Emory medical student is helping the CDC alert doctors to heat’s effects on medications

Medical student Riya Goel’s life has been shaped by climate change. She spent part of her childhood in Bangalore, India, where she experienced frequent asthma attacks, often requiring hospitalization, due to poor air quality.

Other stints living in California and Colorado exposed her to wildfire smoke. She learned firsthand about Atlanta’s extreme heat when she started medical school at Emory University, where she will graduate in May.

Those experiences sparked an interest in understanding the interaction between climate change and health. Goel has developed a resource for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that helps clinicians understand how heat could affect patients on commonly prescribed medications, from aspirin to antidepressants.