Climate Impacts: Public Health Webinar
January 9th, 2020
Resources from the presentation:
National Climate Assessment – https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/18/
CDC Climate Ready States and Cities Initiative https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/climate_ready.htm
CDC Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/BRACE.htm
CDC Climate and Health publications page https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/publications.htm
CDC ‘Impact of Climate Change on Health’ https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/default.htm
NH DHHS Climate and Health Program https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/climate/index.htm
NH DHHS Environmental Health Tracking Program https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/hsdm/epht.htm
https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/dphs/hsdm/wisdom/index.htm
Monadnock Climate & Health Adaptation Plan – http://www.swrpc.org/chap
Seacoast Climate & Health Adaptation Plan – http://www.seacoastphn.org/uploads/8/4/0/0/84005490/seacoast_plan_of_action_03.4.19_b.pdf
Wellenius, G.A., Heat-related morbidity and mortality in New England: Evidence for local policy. Environmental Research (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2017.02.005
| State | Heat-related Tools | URL |
| MA | Heat Vulnerability Index | matracking.ehs.state.ma.us/ Climate-Change/map-hvi.html |
| ME | Air Conditioning Data by County & Housing Status | data.mainepublichealth.gov/ tracking |
| NH | Heat Community Toolkit | nh.gov/epht/documents/heat-community-toolkit-final.pdf |
| RI | Interactive Heat Stress & Daily Temp Data Visualization | health.ri.gov/data/heatstress |
| VT | Heat Vulnerability Index | healthvermont.gov/tracking/ vulnerability-indicators |
Webinar Description:
In the face of severe weather events and rapidly changing climate, who is at risk and what can be done? This webinar will discuss how to use a national framework to pursue ‘resilience’ from a health perspective, assess information on hazards, health effects, and vulnerability, and support the development of climate adaptation plans. We will present viable examples of how to engage with local partners, build public health ‘infrastructure’, pursue behaviour change, and work with ‘front-line’ communities at risk for climate impacts.
Presenters:
Dr. Kathleen Bush is the Program Manager for the Environmental Public Health Tracking Program at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health Services. She also supports the Climate and Health Program. Her work focuses on human-environment interactions. With a background in environmental epidemiology, she draws on a variety of statistical and geospatial methods to evaluate trends in health outcomes across space and time. She is committed to building environmental health capacity at the State and Local level. Kathleen completed her Ph.D. in 2011 in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she was also a Graham Environmental Sustainability Doctoral Fellow.
Matt Cahillane is a public health program manager with a background in adult education and environmental health. His current projects include building community resilience against climate change and helping town health officers to solve environmental problems in housing, pest control, and sanitation. He administers a CDC grant on climate change called Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE). His educational background includes training as a Wilderness EMT, a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Preventive Health Studies from UMass Amherst, and a Masters of Public Health (MPH) with a focus in Behavioral Science and Health Education from UCLA. As of November 2019, his health intervention projects include measuring community resilience, emergency preparedness for severe weather and teaching tick-safe practices.
Janine Marr is a Ph.D. student in Antioch University New England’s Environmental Studies department. She began working with the Center for Climate Preparedness & Community Resilience in 2018 as a graduate research assistant for the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) project with the Greater Monadnock Public Health Network in Cheshire County. Janine conducted research and facilitated stakeholder sessions to produce a literature review and theoretical framework that assisted community partners in the creation of a pilot intervention. Initiated in Spring 2019, the BRACE project used the Transtheoretical Model of behavior change and combined educational sessions with emergency kits and support networks to build resilience against extreme precipitation events within the over-65 population. The results of the pilot intervention will inform a similar project throughout the region in 2020.
