The most far-reaching climate victories aren’t won by climate advocates alone; they’re built through broader coalitions with shared stakes in the outcome. As states across the country face rollbacks and other attacks on climate and clean energy goals, building strong partnerships with diverse voices is critical for protecting policies already in place and securing stronger, more ambitious policies in the future. Climate, healthcare, and public health advocates have long worked together on campaigns that build safer, healthier communities, and there is much we can learn from these joint efforts.
We convened experts at the intersection of climate, healthcare, and public health advocacy to highlight best practices and lessons learned from strong campaigns that leverage both climate and health advocacy:
- Shweta Arya, Senior Project Manager for Smart Surfaces at the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health & Equity
- Tim Cronin, Associate Director of Policy & Advocacy at Health Care Without Harm & Practice Greenhealth
Mobilizing Public Health for State Climate Policy
Learn more by watching the webinar at 04:55.
Shweta Arya provided an overview of the importance and influence of public health perspectives in climate advocacy and lessons learned from specific health and climate campaigns, drawing on her experience with the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health & Equity. Highlights from her presentation include:
- Framing climate change as a public health threat resonates with communities. The majority of Americans trust health professionals as a source of information about climate change, creating a huge opportunity to mobilize people in support of climate action.
- Health evidence and trusted messengers once worked to shift public opinion and advocacy against the tobacco industry; we can use similar strategies to showcase the health impacts of fossil fuel-driven climate change.
- Key climate and health policy priorities
- Making polluters pay: States across the country are attempting to shield fossil fuel companies from climate liability. These immunity bills shift the costs of flooding, heat, and pollution from the companies that cause them onto families and health systems.
- Data center regulation: Facilities’ water use strains local supplies, and their emissions accelerate climate change and cause local health impacts.
- Examples of health and climate advocates in coalition
- Organizers in support of Delaware’s Climate Change Solutions Act (enacted, 2023) included testimony from health professionals, resulting in the passage of the bill and the creation of the Mid-Atlantic Alliance on Climate and Health to fill the gap between health and climate advocates.
- The Smart Surfaces Coalition coordinates over 40 organizations in creating cooler, healthier, and more resilient cities by reducing impacts of urban heat and flooding.
- The Cities for Smart Surfaces project brought together NGOs to work with city governments on transforming dark, impervious city surfaces to light, porous surfaces to combat extreme heat and flooding, through policy and education.
- The Alliance for Heat Resilience and Health (AHRH) convenes over a dozen national partners on extreme heat-related campaigns.
- AHRH coordinated with the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) on National Heat Safety Week, mobilizing state-level actors to create governor’s proclamations and educate on the impact of extreme heat on health.
- The Extreme Heat Resource Hub provides actionable tools and training for health professionals and communities.
- Strategies to bring health the climate table
- Uplift health professionals as trusted climate communicators
- Focus on the health benefits of climate solutions
- Partner with APHA and allies (e.g. Physicians for Social Responsibility, Medical Society Consortium, Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment), who offer research, messengers, and campaign support
Mobilizing Hospitals and Health Systems for State Climate Policy
Learn more by watching the webinar at 28:32.
Tim Cronin spotlighted the importance of hospitals and health systems as partners in shaping, enacting, and implementing climate policy. He shared lessons learned in his role leveraging the influence of hospitals in local, state, and federal policy at Health Care Without Harm & Practice Greenhealth. Highlights from his presentation include:
- Hospitals can help make climate impacts more tangible, translating climate hazards into outcomes for patients (e.g., heat illness, smoke exposure, injuries), workers (e.g., hazard-related staffing and transportation disruptions), care delivery (e.g., impacts to power, supplies, and facility operation) and communities (e.g., complications related to discharge and home medical needs).
- Hospitals can leverage their practical operational knowledge to shape climate policy design and implementation. Their need to continuously enforce safety and infection measures, reliably power facilities and machinery, and accurately maintain data reporting and validation — all while operating under specific capital constraints — can inform smart policies and standards that hospitals can actually achieve.
- Example: MassHealth, Massachusetts’ state public health insurance agency, developed the first hospital greenhouse gas emissions reporting system. Rather than implementing this climate measure through an environmental agency, it’s run through a health agency, which has existing connections and accountability with hospitals, supporting effective implementation.
- Example: Boston’s BERDO (Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance) is working with hospitals to ensure policy design is informed, rather than blocked, by complicated healthcare-specific issues like central energy systems, continuously occupied facilities, and challenges with heavily regulated long-term capital.
- Example: Hospitals in Southern California have spoken to the health benefits of reducing pollution from boilers, informing regional boiler and air quality rules, while also helping regulators understand practical implementation timelines for hospitals to achieve patient outcomes while still replacing polluting equipment.
- Hospitals can validate and advocate for climate policy from their perspective as major landowners, energy users, and respected civic institutions, framing climate action as protection for health, affordability, grid reliability, and local communities.
- However, while hospitals have existing lobbying and government affairs teams, they don’t necessarily have relationships or experience with energy committees, environmental agencies, and utility regulators, which climate advocates can provide.
- Start your engagement with hospitals with simple relationship building, working to understand their unique experiences, priorities, and constraints in the context of climate action.
- Once hospital actors are educated and mobilized, they can support climate policy agendas by advising on technical policy design, participating in working groups, providing letters of support or private outreach to government bodies, and testifying in front of legislatures or agencies.
Q&A
Learn more by watching the Q&A at 49:18.
Q: Many rural communities lack the resources to advance climate-friendly or energy-efficient technologies. Are there examples or funding resources that can help support rural hospitals?
Q: Shweta mentioned data centers cause adverse health impacts and threaten water resources. Are these health impacts solely related to the combustion of fossil fuels? Why are data centers built in water-scarce areas when they require so much water?
Q: How do healthcare professionals categorize patients’ health conditions, and does that reporting include causes related to climate hazards, like extreme heat?
