Advancing environmental health equity

Together with the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and the National Medical Association, the largest and oldest national organization representing the interests of African American physicians and their patients, we are proud to support the Climate and Healthy Equity Fellowship. This first of its kind program empowers physicians of color to become leaders in climate and health equity education, advocacy and patient care. Each Fellow completes a 10-month intensive training program, including a project related to climate change and health equity. 2023 marked the third year of the program, which has supported more than 30 Fellows from across the U.S. Meet the current Fellows, and alumni of the program, here.

We are partnering with Americares and The Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) to bolster climate resilience at clinics that serve people with limited access to care in communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Together, through The Climate Health Equity for Community Clinics Program, we will implement and evaluate interventions that improve operational resilience in clinics, as well as health resilience among the people they serve so that when climate impacts occur they will be able to maintain access to quality healthcare. Through this work we will support up to 100 free and charitable clinics and community health centers across the U.S. by 2025.

In 2023, the first 10 pilot clinics got underway and will develop evidence-based action plans to protect vulnerable patients from the health impacts of climate change. These clinics, located in Arizona, Florida and Louisiana, will first focus on the health impacts caused by extreme heat. Examples of interventions could include setting up call centers to share relevant health information during heatwaves and partnering with existing community organizations that conduct home wellness checks to monitor patient safety as temperatures rise or to transport vulnerable patients to cooling centers.