The 2026 FIFA World Cup — now underway across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico — is the largest sporting event in the tournament's history, featuring 48 nations and more than 5 million fans. Eleven of those 16 cities are in the United States. The matches run for 39 days, from June 11 through mid-July. And in city after city, in fan zones and stadium precincts and sports bars, that duration is creating an unprecedented sustained concentration of the conditions that public health experts know produce preventable emergency room visits.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and former senior adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in her widely read public health newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist that heat-related illness is "probably the most reliable risk" at the World Cup beyond infectious diseases. Her phrasing was precise: "Crowds plus sun plus summer temperatures plus physical exertion plus alcohol is a combination that sends people to emergency rooms every year."
