BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1565251
This article is part of the Research TopicHeat Stress and Public Health Issues: Impacts, Adaptation, and MitigationView all articles
Descriptive Analysis of Municipal Policies Addressing Shade in Eight Southwest and Northeast States in the United States
Provisionally accepted
David B Buller1*
Alishia Kinsey1
Taylor Sullivan1Phoebe Gruetter2Margaret C Morrissey-Basler3Ian D Buller4Carolyn J Heckman5- 1Klein Buendel, Golden, United States
- 2Science Park High School, Newark, United States
- 3Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island, United States
- 4DLH, LLC, Bethesda, United States
- 5Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
IntroductionShade is an essential environmental feature to prevent heat illnesses and skin cancer. Written policies related to shade were described in municipalities in four southwest and four northeast U.S. states.MethodMunicipal codes, planning documents, and manuals/guidelines from municipalities (N=48) in eight U.S. states were coded for content related to shade by research assistants. They used a standardized protocol to assign numeric codes to each document to assess type of document, type of shade, location, resource allocation, accountability, and design standards. Results were summarized using descriptive statistics.ResultsThree quarters of municipalities (75.0%) had a policy document that addressed shade, including municipal codes (54.2%), planning documents (29.2%), and manuals/guidelines (12.5%). Protecting from heat (31.3%) was mentioned in policies more than protecting from ultraviolet radiation (8.3%), as was natural shade (56.3%) rather than constructed shade (25.0%). Policies prescribed several design standards, most frequently shade material, proportion of area covered, and attractiveness. Half (50.0%) of municipalities mentioned accountability for shade in the policy, but only a third (35.4%) addressed resource allocation. Regional differences were seen in policy document type, shade type, locations, design standards, and resource allocation.DiscussionMany municipalities had policies that mentioned shade, but only a minority of policies indicated that the purpose of the policy was protection from heat or ultraviolet radiation. In northeast municipalities, which can have local home rule traditions, policies on shade appeared almost entirely in municipal codes. Southwest municipalities often included policies in planning documents that may have less legal force than municipal codes.
Keywords: shade, policy, Municipalities, environment, Heat illness, Skin Cancer
Received: 22 Jan 2025; Accepted: 25 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Buller, Kinsey, Sullivan, Gruetter, Morrissey-Basler, Buller and Heckman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: David B Buller, Klein Buendel, Golden, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.