In Jordan's Zaatari camp, heat and dust worsen chronic-disease symptoms

Heatwaves and dust storms were associated with a measurable rise in symptoms among Syrian refugees living with chronic disease in Jordan's Zaatari camp, according to a prospective study in GeoHealth [s1]. The finding puts a number on something long assumed but rarely quantified in displacement settings: that climate stress and noncommunicable disease compound each other [s1].

What the study measured

Researchers followed 660 adults receiving care at King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Clinics in Zaatari, all of them living with noncommunicable diseases, across three periods aligned to seasonal heat in 2024 [s1]. Self-reported symptoms following heatwaves and dust storms were collected through structured interviews, and the repeated measurements were analysed with mixed-effects models and generalised estimating equations [s1].

Heatwaves and dust storms were associated with an increased symptom burden among participants [s1]. The burden was highest in Phase 1, the hottest period of 2024 in the Mafraq region, where the mean daily maximum temperature reached 37.8°C and peaked at 43°C across multiple heatwave and dust-storm days [s1]. During that phase participants reported more shortness of breath, fatigue and hypertension symptoms, especially those with asthma or hypertension [s1].

The pattern eased as conditions moderated. Phase 2, with a mean daily maximum of 34.1°C and a peak of 37°C, carried lower odds of heatwave- and dust-storm-related impacts than Phase 1 — odds ratios of 0.54 and 0.62 respectively — with a similar profile of symptoms [s1]. Phase 3, at a mean daily maximum of 32.6°C with fewer dust storms, showed no significant change compared with Phase 2 [s1].

Who was most affected

Across all three phases, the study found higher odds of adverse health impacts among women, among people in larger households, and among those with asthma [s1]. That combination points to a vulnerability that is partly clinical and partly social: a respiratory condition raises the physiological risk, while a crowded household shapes exposure and the capacity to cope [s1].

The design is what gives those comparisons weight. Because the same participants were followed across the three seasonal phases, the analysis could use repeated-measures models with prespecified covariates rather than compare separate groups of people — an approach that reduces the chance that the differences between phases simply reflect different populations [s1]. The falling odds ratios from Phase 1 to Phase 2, and the absence of a further significant change into the milder Phase 3, trace a dose-response shape: as the heat and dust eased, so did the reported symptom burden [s1].

Why it matters for displacement settings

The authors note that quantitative evidence on how heat and dust affect health in displacement settings remains limited, which is what makes a prospective camp-based study unusual [s1]. Zaatari sits in a region where heat stress is already a recognised and escalating public-health challenge; a MENA-wide review has described rising temperatures as a significant challenge for the region and a spur to stronger heat-protection measures [s2]. Refugees living with chronic disease in tented or prefabricated shelter face that heat with fewer of the defences — cooling, clinical continuity, housing insulation — available elsewhere.

The study population was drawn from adults already enrolled in chronic-disease care at the camp's relief clinics [s1]. That is an important framing: these are not incidental illnesses but managed conditions — hypertension, asthma and the like — whose management is disrupted when an environmental shock arrives [s1]. A heatwave that a well-resourced patient absorbs with air conditioning and an unbroken supply of medication becomes, in a camp, a measurable spike in symptoms [s1].

The limits

The health outcomes are self-reported symptoms gathered in interviews, not clinical measurements or hospital records, and the study covers one camp across one year [s1]. Self-reported symptom data can be influenced by recall and by how questions are framed, and a single-site design limits how far the numbers generalise. What the study establishes is an association between defined heat-and-dust events and higher symptom burden in a specific, well-characterised population [s1]. It does not test any particular intervention, and it stops at describing the vulnerability rather than prescribing a fix [s1]. But by quantifying the link in a real camp population, it gives humanitarian health planners something firmer than assumption to work from when heat seasons arrive [s1].

Sources

• [s1] "Heat and Dust Impacts on the Health of Refugees in Zaatari Refugee Camp," GeoHealth, 28 July 2026. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gh001687
• [s2] "Policies and Interventions in Middle Eastern and North African Countries to Mitigate Heat Stress Experienced by Outdoor Workers," Current Environmental Health Reports, 3 March 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-026-00525-x