Public Health & Climate Adaptation Planning SYNERGIES AND - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Public Health & Climate Adaptation Planning

SYNERGIES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Mona Arora, PhD, MSPH Southwest Drought & Human Health Workshop February 27, 2020

Objectives

Illustrate how the public health system engages with climate change adaptation. Provide insights to bring together public health and climate science.

What does public health engagement on climate change look like?

• Plans?
• Assessments?
• Epidemiologic studies?

National Survey

4

“I also think too, internally, I think there are sectors or organizations or even just different staff that don't necessarily see that connection between what they do and climate change.”

What is public health engagement actually look like?

Climate & Health Strategic Planning

23% 35% 11% 15% 17% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% YES NO, But similar plan NO Plans In Development Don't know/unsure

Percentage of Respondents

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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Policies & Plans Linking to services Forming partnerships Conducting assessments Training Informing public Informing policymakers Investigating Tracking trends EWS development Researching Funded Not funded Unsure

Climate Change Activities

Barriers

20% 19% 19% 35% 24% 26% 46% 47% 17% 25% 5% 8% 28% 36% 42% 37% 40% 27% 28% 19% 17% 26% 31% 17% 16% 21% 34% 29% 33% 19% 37% 26% 22% 21% 35% 37% 24% 29% 16% 10% 10% 11% 7% 12% 19% 13% 12% 22% 7% 55% 47% 35% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Temporal scale is too long. Spatial scale is too coarse. Projections are too uncertain. The current projections are difficult to understand. Not enough examples or models for use at local level. Limited training and expertise to work with data. Lack of software to handle the data. Lack of hardware to acquire data. Lack of required long-term health outcome data. Timeliness of receiving information. Lack of funding. Lack of staff. Lack of institutional support.

Not a Barrier Somewhat of a Barrier Moderate Barrier Extreme Barrier

How can climate science and public health come together?

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Adapted from: Shumake-Guillemot, J., & Fernandez-Montoya, L. (2016).

Communication & Collaboration

Local and Regional forums Multi-disciplinary meetings Climate vs. Health reports Focused workshops

Build partnerships Aligning interests Data & knowledge sharing Inform research Prioritizing actions Inform decisions

Solution 1: Enabling Environment

“The reports seemed to be created by epis (epidemiologists) for epis. As a program manager, I didn’t have a strong epi or biostatistics background so synthesizing the information was more challenging.”

Incentivizing Engagement

Solution 2: Building Public Health Capacity

Public Health Framing

• Common ground: value added

benefits to community and wellbeing

• Community level benefits

that begin with a focus on the most vulnerable and expand

• Social Determinants of

Health, Health Equity

• Be actionable: provide solutions

that are time and place oriented.

• Integrate specific language
• Promote tailored, salient,

culturally relevant actions

Action Items

• Is public health at the table?
• Has the process, output, or

report been vetted by public health?

• Are health impacts explicitly

addressed?

• Is the health connection

apparent?

• Can you add climate and health

messaging?

• Are there existing frames that

your work or ask can align to?