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Health department outlines Climate and Health Adaptation Framework and community outreach plan
Summary
The Department of Public Health presented a Climate and Health Adaptation Framework that links climate projections to health outcomes, highlights neighborhood vulnerabilities and proposes 80+ adaptation strategies; staff said they will finalize a community outreach strategy and issue a press release pending commission approval.
Cindy Commerford, who directs the department's climate and health program in the Office of Policy and Planning, presented the department's Climate and Health Adaptation Framework and related tools, including an interactive climate-and-health profile and neighborhood vulnerability mapping.
Commerford said the program began in 2010 with competitive CDC grant funding and is one of two city-based programs funded nationally. She summarized projected local climate changes — rising extreme heat days, sea-level rise and increased storm intensity — and explained how those hazards can translate into direct health consequences (heat-related illness, worsened air quality) and indirect problems (vector-borne disease shifts, mental-health impacts and food insecurity).
The staff presentation highlighted program outputs used for planning and outreach: a 40-page climate-and-health profile converted into an interactive website, a vulnerable-heat index and flood-vulnerability analysis, translated educational materials in Spanish, Tagalog and Chinese, and a matrix that evaluates more than 80 candidate adaptation strategies. The framework also proposes indicators for measuring health impacts and a staged outreach plan: finalize community outreach strategy, conduct stakeholder engagement, form an advisory team, select initial interventions and develop implementation and evaluation plans. Commerford said the program's current CDC grant runs through September 2016 plus a five-year period noted in the materials and that federal funding remains subject to congressional appropriations.
Commissioners praised the report, asked about public communication and asked staff to coordinate with other city agencies and the school district. Commerford said staff would issue a press release pending approval and were working with city partners to align messaging and to develop train-the-trainer outreach with community-based organizations. She offered to return with follow-up reporting on outreach outcomes and implementation progress.
