Extreme heat remains a potent public policy challenge for municipalities across the nation.
Nearly 2,400 people died from heat in 2024, making it one of the deadliest years on record. In the first three months of 2025, global temperatures were the second warmest ever recorded; in June 2025, over 350 daily high temperature records were tied or broken.
Nowhere in the U.S. is extreme heat more acute than Arizona.
“Heat isn’t a one and done problem,” explained Nate Young, Heat Response and Relief Program Manager for Pima County, Arizona. “Heat-related illnesses result in other conditions and chronic health issues can be exacerbated by heat. It can intimately affect Arizonans’ quality of life.”
Betsy Camara, a Pima County Heat Relief and Response Manager, explained how heat disproportionately affects certain populations in Arizona, like unhoused individuals and the elderly. “Effective intervention and mitigating heat risk takes a coordinated effort. There is no Department of Heat, we all have to work together.”
Camara explained that Pima County works with city governments, non-profits, universities, other counties in Arizona, and the state government. “Traditionally, government work is siloed,” she said. “But with heat mitigation, it’s not just different levels of government that are involved, but different departments within state, county, and local government and non-governmental partners, too. We have to be able to collaborate to help Arizonans experiencing extreme heat.”
Existing technologies, however, posed multiple coordination challenges. “Everyone had a different platform, like Zoom or Teams or whatever the other ones are,” Camara said. “We’re sharing real-time data and emergent information. We don’t have time to constantly approve permissions and juggle a variety of tools to work with our partners to help our constituents.”
The Arizona Department of Health Services deployed Roundtable already, allowing County partners to leverage the partnership to use Roundtable, too.
“And voila, Roundtable solved the problem.”
Today, Pima County uses Roundtable as the foundation to work with its partners to mitigate heat. “The platform is a one stop shop for information,” Camara said. “We use Roundtable’s platform for video calls, we share documents and notifications about extreme heat directly with everyone who needs to know, and we can get real time updates from the field. Roundtable alleviates the stress of getting people the information they need to keep Arizonans safe from heat.”
“We’re all flooded with emails and other notifications. Roundtable is the tool for coordination between Pima County and our partners and within the county itself,” agreed Young. He told us that much of the coordination between organizations during heat season involves extreme heat warnings, helping ensure supplies are distributed where they’re needed, providing updates about local ordinances, addressing transportation concerns, and a whole lot more.
Then, Young proceeded to tell us about something special: A faith-based organization posted in Roundtable about having extra clothing, and another organization was able to connect directly with them in Roundtable to get shirts for people in need.
“It’s proof that coordination isn’t a one-way street. Yes, we use Roundtable to work with other organizations, but we see nonprofits and other governmental agencies working directly with one another through the platform,” Young continued. “Without Roundtable, it wouldn’t be possible.”
Camara and Young told us that by virtue of information and people being more accessible through Roundtable to the diverse constituency working to address heat risk for Arizonans, there’s been higher engagement with events and materials. “Reporting, in particular, is more accessible,” Young noted. “We have more data from the field, so we, as the county, can make smarter decisions.”
Camara agreed. “Before, we heard so often, ‘Oh, I can’t get into the Teams link’ or ‘I can’t find this resource or that document.’ With Roundtable, those concerns have more or less gone away. More people join the weekly meetings, more people can access resources after the meeting, and having all our partners know where all the information lives is invaluable.”
Though we are in the throes of heat season, Young also has an eye on using Roundtable for the offseason. “Today, we’re very focused on making sure the information we have, all the data from different sources, we have to synthesize that and make sure our partners get what they need. In the offseason, we’ll shift to using Roundtable for preparedness, education, and analysis of the previous heat season so we can continue to improve.”
“We want our operation to be built on best practices,” Camara said. “Roundtable is a critical component of our ability to be at our best.”
