Effectiveness and feasibility of residential passive heat adaptation interventions on reducing indoor temperature in low-income communities in Africa: a systematic review.

Rising global temperatures have emerged as a critical concern in recent decades and are recognized as one of the biggest threats to human health. In Africa, low-income communities face disproportionate exposure and vulnerability to extreme temperatures due to poorly planned housing structures and limited adaptive capacity. As passive heat adaptation interventions gain traction across the continent, this review evaluates their technical effectiveness and community feasibility within low-income African communities. Using the Joanna Briggs Institute feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness, and effectiveness framework, the review examines how building modification interventions have been developed, tested, and implemented, their capacity to improve indoor thermal comfort, and the socio-technical factors influencing their uptake and scalability. The findings indicate that greening systems, house insulation, screened windows, reflective surfaces and window opening have the most potential for widespread and sustainable implementation in low-income communities. In contrast, interventions such as solar chimneys, metal roofs, wind towers, nozzle air funnels, closed eaves, open eaves, thatched roofs, bottle houses, earthbag houses and passive solar houses demonstrate higher context-specific and structural limitations despite their technical effectiveness. The review identifies critical gaps in long-term performance, scalability and community acceptability of technically effective passive heat adaptation interventions, especially in low-income communities. Overall, the study provides an analytical foundation for guiding the selection of effective, contextually appropriate passive heat adaptation interventions and underscores the need for participatory and inclusive implementation approaches to enhance heat resilience in vulnerable African communities.