Road to readiness: Metrics and milestones for climate ready states and cities

As the nation's public health agency, CDC uses its prevention expertise to help state and city health departments investigate, prepare for, and respond to the health effects that climate change may have on people. CDC's Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI) helps states and cities develop ways to anticipate these health effects by applying climate science, predicting health impacts, and preparing flexible programs. CDC assists states and cities to apply advanced techniques to incorporate climate projections into public health planning and response activities. In the CRSCI, states and cities develop and use models to predict health impacts, monitor health effects, and identify the area's most vulnerable to these effects. In this presentation the speaker will highlight the metrics and milestones being developed by CDC to assist state and local health departments to evaluate progress in becoming “Climate-Ready”. Discussion will focus on key capabilities that should be developed, and activities that should be undertaken by a health department to ensure that climate forecasts derived from climate models are being taken into account during short, mid and long range public health planning and response. The metrics and milestones that will be discussed are designed to reflect the key elements of CDC's Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework which provides the stepwise sequence of activities recommended to state and local health departments participating in the CRSCI. The speaker will also provide an update on progress of the CRSCI and describe the initiatives latest products and activities that are building climate change capabilities within state and local health agencies.