Communities across America are under-resourced and under-prepared to address climate change. Support for frontline communities to develop and implement evidence-based climate health strategies is critical to prevent and respond to local health effects. Through our response to COVID-19, the CDC Foundation has built a network of 300 frontline community-based organizations positioned to identify local public health priorities and shape effective responses. The CDC Foundation aims to develop a similar approach to community-level preparedness to help frontline communities in the fight against climate change.

It is critical we address the climate crisis at all levels of the public health sector. Traditionally charged with reducing preventable death and disease, public health professionals must now accelerate their leadership, expertise in leveraging scientific evidence, problem-solving capabilities and high levels of public trust to address climate change through effective policies and projects. In partnership with Florida A&M University Institute of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Advocacy and UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions, the CDC Foundation aims to implement an innovative climate health training program for public health professionals to inform scientifically rigorous policy solutions and establish a national peer-to-peer support network among public health professionals for ongoing technical assistance to help rebuild the public health system with a focus on climate.

The U.S. healthcare system accounts for nearly 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 10 percent of global GDP. With capacity to drive change, the sector has great potential to lead in the global response to climate change while also better serving communities through public health partnerships.

In collaboration with Health Care Without Harm, the CDC Foundation will work to develop cross-sector partnerships, strategies and tools to increase the U.S. healthcare system’s ability to respond to the health effects of climate change while reducing its own environmental impact. Through these partnerships we aim to build a resource bank of case studies and tools clinicians can use to recognize and respond to social and environmental determinants of health, and to reduce the carbon footprint of the U.S. healthcare system by working with likeminded vendors and transform purchasing practices with climate change at the forefront.