Online Program

Oral

Climate change threatens human health in many ways. Some health impacts of climate change are already underway in the United States. While many health departments are interested in determining future disease burden, most are not particularly familiar with scenario-based, quantitative disease projections. To facilitate this process, the Climate and Health Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework. As part of BRACE, health agencies are encouraged to produce estimates of the future burden of disease for climate-related health outcomes. These estimates can then be used to rank the health outcomes, prioritize preventive actions, and design health adaptation plans. This session will provide a brief overview of CDC guidance on the process of projecting future climate-related disease burden. While there is no “gold standard” for projecting the health impacts of climate change, examples from state health departments are intended to orient those interested in projecting climate change disease burden to facilitate public health preparedness for the challenges ahead. The session will give an overview of the steps several health departments, as part of CDC’s Climate Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI), are taking to project climate-related disease burden. Speakers will highlight the methods for undertaking this critical step of the BRACE framework, describe challenges and preliminary results, and present the findings and lessons learned from their experience in projecting future disease burdens.

Session Objectives: • Describe methods for projecting climate-related disease burden. • Identify steps CDC’s Climate and Health Program is taking to support health departments to project climate-related disease burden. • Identify sources of information for undertaking Step 2 of the BRACE framework. • Describe the barriers and challenges experienced by health agencies when conducting disease burden projections.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)