Workers and Climate Change: Framing the Issues

Current climate vulnerability assessments rarely identify working populations, yet their duties put workers at particular risk, and at the mercy of their employer’s preparedness. There is evidence that workers are already suffering in body and mind as a function of their “compelled” exposures to heat, extreme weather events, and the endemic unsafe conditions experienced during disaster response. Inequities have driven global migration and have made many of the workers who attend to the basic needs of the United States’ population – their food, shelter and care –particularly vulnerable. These social and economic vulnerabilities and risks to health and well-being will increase with a changing climate, yet the regulatory framework is currently inadequate to address them. Additionally, direct impacts of the changing climate on the workforce will be felt by the population at large in the dimensions of food security, healthcare adequacy, and safety. This presentation will review the categories of workers at greatest risk of climate-related health effects, survey the public health infrastructure devoted to risk-minimization, surveillance and preparedness, and propose a framework for enhancing public health efforts to prepare, adapt, and mitigate in a way that is comprehensive and inclusive of workers.