Measuring health outcomes as an evaluation tool for local climate change action plans and programs

With disrupted hydrological cycles, increased stagnant air masses, and frequently occurring extreme weather events, climate change poses a serious risk to health. As science confirms the presence and ever increasing threats of climate change, local actors have emerged in the absence of a global consensus to engage in the climate dilemma. Many U.S. cities are creating policies and programs based on climate change impact assessments and forecast models performed on a global or regional scale. Yet, how climate change strategies will impact human welfare on a local scale remains largely unknown.

Climate change strategies can often yield measurable co-benefits for health such as improved air quality leading to potential reductions in asthma-related hospital visits or reduced waterborne disease outbreaks resulting from conversions to more energy-efficient municipal wastewater treatment facilities. As a result, the City of Austin's Climate Protection Program and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Working Group on Climate Change is piloting a unique approach to linking public health and local climate change programs. The collaboration uses environmental data, disease surveillance and vulnerability mapping to create a local system of health indicators as it relates to city-based climate change strategies. The project draws a variety of data from multiple sources. These climate change health indicators will serve as evaluation tools to inform policy makers on implementing appropriate climate change strategies while strengthening existing public health infrastructure in an evidence-based manner.