NIH grant incentivizes UC ECO-Health to reduce climate-related illnesses in underserved communities.
By
Lorna Fernandes
San Francisco covered in smoke from wildfires in 2020. Photo by Susan Merrell
On September 9, 2020, 7.7 million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area gasped. That morning, they stared out the window in horror as the sun disappeared behind an apocalyptic orange haze that lingered for more than a day and made it difficult to see and breathe.
An estimated 8,000 wildfires burned 4.2 million acres in the state that year, more than double any previous year dating back to 1950. The emergency, along with the broader trend toward more numerous and larger forest fires in recent years, triggered the creation of the UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity (CCHE).
UC San Francisco Co-Founders and Professors Arianne Tehranidoctorate and Sheri WeiserMD, who were studying the impact of climate change on health when the emergency struck, said the day crystallized for them the urgency of the climate and health crisis.
“We said, ‘Our children, like many others, cannot go to school and cannot breathe outside air,’” Teherani recalls. “And the negative health effects are worst for young children and older adults with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other chronic health conditions in disproportionately affected communities.”
Thus, CCHE, a UC-wide initiative based at UCSF, was born and charged with training the next generation of healthcare providers on the impacts of climate-related events on health and well-being. be, especially in communities disproportionately affected.
Last month, the 3-year-old center was one of 20 recipients nationwide of a National Institute of Health (NIH) P20 grant, which it plans to use to expand its work in studying climate-health disparities, their impact on communities and establishing partnerships to address them.
The expansion builds on the center’s work training more than 100 UC faculty and educating more than 7,000 UC students on climate, health and sustainability. He even launched Climate resilience of CUsa UC-wide course on climate change and mental health resilience that has enrolled graduate and undergraduate students across the system. The center also provided detailed climate data on air pollution, extreme heat and unprecedented rainfall in California. UCSF Health Atlasan interactive mapping tool to measure health in disadvantaged communities.
Going through culture and language
The recent $4.2 million grant will be spread over three years to launch the Center’s Equity and Climate Opportunities for Health (ECO-Health) initiative, a UC collaboration with UCSF, UC Berkeley and UCLA to identify communities most affected by climate change and develop strategies to improve health and reduce disparities. ECO-Santé’s goals include developing a cadre of researchers trained to identify the inequitable health impacts of climate change and creating partnerships with these communities to take action.
“We designed ECO-Health Center to identify communities that would be disproportionately impacted by catastrophic climate-related events and to test solutions to build resilience and reduce health inequities,” Weiser said. “Imagine, for example, if alerts about air pollution could be sent to COPD patients based on their location, warning them to stay indoors and use their inhalers. This would help reduce health crises and the increase in the number of emergency room visits.
Teherani added that it is also crucial to develop and disseminate solutions that address community concerns and that involve local languages and cultures.
“ECO-Health’s emphasis on equitable community engagement in all phases of research is critical to ensuring that solutions truly address the roots of climate-health inequities and facilitate healthy futures for the most vulnerable communities. affected,” she said.
Visionaries see this as the start of an exploration of ways to build climate resilience in our communities to achieve the greatest health benefits and reduce health inequities, as extreme weather likely becomes the norm.
