Climate change and health 101: Educating public health professionals in Illinois

The results from the Illinois Climate and Health Survey that was disseminated to all 96 local health departments in Illinois indicated a clear need for additional education on the public health impacts from climate change for local health department leadership and staff.  The majority of the responding local health departments did not feel knowledgeable about the health effects connected to climate change.  Based on this finding, Building Resilience Against Climate Effects in Illinois (BRACE-Illinois), part of CDC’s Climate Ready Cities and States Initiative, prioritized climate and health literacy within the public health workforce and developed an educational initiative, “Climate Change and Health 101.”  It is geared towards local and state health department staff, county health board members, and other stakeholders identified by local health department administrators.  It provides an overview of climate change nationally and regionally, and describes the relationship between increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate instability.  The focus of the training is on the public health impacts from climate change that are of most concern to Illinois and what local health departments can do to mitigate and prevent them.  An in-person training was developed and piloted at some local health departments and statewide public health conferences.  In order to make "Climate Change and Health 101" more easily available to public health professionals around the State, BRACE-Illinois created a self-paced, audio online version and made it available on Illinois Department of Public Health’s (IDPH) ITRAIN, which is an online platform used to provide updated trainings to the public health workforce.  The online format helps offset the resource challenges for both state and local health departments and is conducive to maintaining the course with the most current climate trends and interventions. Efforts to promote use of the course are described.