Youth activation is a key goal for many members of the NAM’s Climate Communities Network. Photo credit: Lil Milagro Henriquez, Mycelium Youth Network (CCN Member)
By Jamie Durana
When many people think about climate change, it’s often through the lens of a global phenomenon: rising sea levels, increasingly severe storms, uncontrollable wildfires. In the United States, over 100,000 lives are lost each year due to air pollution that is expected to worsen as a result of climate stress. The economic burden of climate-related health risks is also staggering: health costs linked to climate impacts add up to $820 billion each year just in the United States.
While the statistics illustrate an urgent and immediate crisis, these impacts can feel overwhelming and potential solutions may seem distant. The reality is that strategies to build climate resilience—and improve health outcomes at the same time—are very close to home.
Right now, communities in the United States are grappling with challenges created or worsened by climate change and are mapping out solutions. However, many of the communities bearing the brunt of climate impacts are under-resourced and do not have key investment and infrastructure that could support translating their efforts into lasting solutions.
The National Academy of Medicine’s Climate Communities Network (CCN) aims to level this playing field.
By elevating community-level experiences and expertise, facilitating peer-to-peer conversations, and fostering strategic cross-sector partnerships, CCN supports local efforts to drive innovation and build responsive, relevant, and replicable climate resilience models. To make meaningful progress, mitigation and resilience strategies must be designed by communities on the frontlines. Centering the priorities of the people and neighborhoods most affected by climate-related health risks ensures that interventions can be tailored to address the precise needs in those areas.
Inequity Amplifies Climate Risk
In many communities across the country, climate-related health impacts—like worsening asthma or other respiratory conditions, heat-related illness, or increases in infectious disease cases—are upending lives. Although widespread, these poor health outcomes are often experienced most acutely in under-resourced neighborhoods and in communities of color. Whether escalating air pollution or excessive heat, the effects of climate change are layered on top of existing socioeconomic inequalities.
Urban “heat islands” form when neighborhoods have too many heat-retaining surfaces, such as pavement, roads, and buildings, and not enough green space. These neighborhoods experience higher temperatures than areas with more parks, for example, as well as more air pollution due to a higher concentration of roads. Discriminatory housing practices like “redlining”—where financial institutions denied services to people of color in certain neighborhoods—have contributed to the problem. As a result, under-resourced communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by urban heat islands.
Extreme weather events can result in catastrophic disruption in access to health care services, even long after a storm or flood subsides. In coastal areas of the United States, flooding can contaminate water supplies, promote mold growth in homes, and more, all putting residents’ health in jeopardy and severely hampering local health care delivery in communities where access to care is already limited.
Many U.S. communities disproportionately affected by climate threats recognize the challenges and are actively working to prepare, raise awareness, and respond. However, overcoming lack of investment, infrastructure, and access to services due to unjust forces, like racism and poverty, remains a challenge.
Communities Leading the Path Forward
Community health fairs are an opportunity to provide health screenings and public health services. Photo credit: Jerry P. Abraham, CDU-KEDREN Mobile Street Medicine (CCN Member)
Recognizing that the communities most affected by climate-related health inequities must be at the forefront of defining and implementing solutions, the NAM launched the CCN in 2023 to amplify community priorities and address the structural causes of climate-related health inequities. By facilitating strategic partnerships between community leaders and representatives from government, philanthropy, industry, and academia, the CCN aims to pair community-driven plans with collaborative action.
“Climate change is the greatest health threat of our time. Yet, when individual action feels inadequate and large-scale change seems daunting, it is community-level efforts that give hope. When those who experience climate impacts first and worst work together towards a shared outcome, success is more often within reach. The CCN further bolsters these strong community efforts by giving them a bullhorn and a boost onto a national platform.” – Sheetal Rao (Nordson Green Earth, CCN Member)
For the 18 community leaders selected to join the CCN’s inaugural cohort, valuable resources and support are available to drive on-the-ground solutions. They gain access to a peer-to-peer network for sharing best practices, along with technical assistance from 11 strategic partners to strengthen local capacity. Critically, the CCN also provides guidance on effectively engaging cross-sector stakeholders who can help open doors and remove roadblocks to implementing solutions.
Elevating community experience: learn about what motivates CCN Members
Through this relationship-building model, the CCN hopes to accelerate progress by co-designing interventions precisely tailored to each participating community. Current CCN members are focused on a diverse range of topics, tackling impacts like excessive heat, flooding, and worsening air quality, as well as pressing priorities like food security, cultural preservation, youth engagement, and mental health.
Growing a local force for climate action
First responders receive training to serve their community. Photo credit: Armen Henderson, Dade County Street Response (CCN Member)
The growing health and economic costs of climate change make clear that siloed efforts are not enough to protect our communities and future generations. Designing meaningful and lasting solutions to climate threats and health risks requires looking beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. By linking participating communities with resources and fostering strategic relationships across sectors, the CCN is poised to help communities build capacity and cultivate the relationships and momentum needed to drive change at the local level where it’s needed most.
The network represents a critical step toward recognizing that community priorities—including climate-related health inequities—must be defined by communities themselves and solutions crafted through that lens. By structurally reframing how we approach the climate crisis, national organizations like the NAM can better support communities across the United States as they design sustainable and relevant solutions.
