The Arkansas Department of Health says 11 people have died this year from the heat as cities across the state have shattered temperature records. But it hasn’t given out any details about who died or when and where those deaths occurred.
State officials say they’re required to keep those kinds of details private unless there’s an urgent public threat, and this year’s heat doesn’t qualify. Open-government advocates question that practice. They say the public often needs to be told more about heat deaths and can be given certain details without violating medical privacy.
“It really does look silly,” said Ken Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. “It seems to me in this case that they are wrong and they weren’t thinking.”
This summer is on track to be one of the driest and hottest on record. Little Rock hit a record-high 114 degrees Aug. 3, and Fort Smith reached 115 degrees multiple times. Some cities saw heat index values surpass 125 degrees for hours at a time.
Several counties declared disasters due to water shortages, and emergency management officials in several counties opened air-conditioned schools and government buildings for the public to cool down.
But it’s unclear how many people died this month in the heat. The Arkansas Department of Health said on Aug. 4 that a second person had died this year beause of heat. On Friday, it raised that total to 11.
Health department officials say federal and state privacy laws prevent them from providing more information.
Reggie Rogers, legal counsel for the health department, said the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s privacy rules apply to the department, and Arkansas state laws ordinarily prevent the release of a birth or death certificate.
At times, the department has released information when officials believe the public is facing an imminent danger, Rogers said. In 2007, officials made public the name of a man infected with tuberculosis who fled the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The man, Franklin Greenwood, was on the loose for 17 days. His tuberculosis was later found not to be infectious.
Releasing details about someone killed in a health emergency — such as age or the county where the person died — often depends on how much can be made public without revealing someone’s identity, department spokesman Ed Barham said.
In Oklahoma, the state medical examiner’s office releases the names, ages, hometowns and circumstances of death when people die because of the heat.
For heat-related deaths, state officials rely on death certificates that are often issued by county coroners long after the death occurred, Barham said. It can take several days to confirm that someone died due to heat — usually after the heat emergency is over.
“What we’ve got is much too late to be of any use,” Barham said.
The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management relies on health officials to provide any information on deaths, department director David Maxwell said in an interview. So far this summer, ADEM hasn’t received any detailed information on heat deaths, Maxwell said.
“Much like West Nile virus or a pandemic situation, we would be dependent on the health department to let us know that there are patterns out there,” Maxwell said. “If they were seeing a pattern of fatalities, I would think they would contact us.”
Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, says releasing some information could be useful and not violate medical privacy.
“I think they’re erring on the side of caution, and too much so in my opinion,” Larimer said. “I have no idea why they won’t give any sort of identifiers.”
Bunting said an event affecting the entire state like August’s extreme heat counts as an emergency that calls for more information.
“It’s almost akin to saying, ‘We’ve got this murder case, but we’re not going to tell you who’s the victim and we’re not going to tell you who’s on trial,”’ Bunting said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
State FOI advocates have asked Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to research the issue, spokesman Aaron Sadler said. “As is often the case where there is confusion or concern over a state agency policy, we do what we can to help facilitate a resolution,” Sadler said.
Barham defended the department’s policies on health information.
“If there’s an imminent threat to the public health, we have shown that we would release (information), and we have done so,” he said.