How will global climate change affect public health departments? The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and George Mason University have conducted a survey of local public health directors to answer this question. The report, published by EDF, shows that local public health directors worry that climate change will cause serious public health problems, believe that they are not ready to deal with the impacts of climate change that could occur, and desire additional resources to improve their preparedness. (Their most common concerns were heat waves, poor air quality, poor water quality, droughts, fires, and storms.) The report’s recommendations follow naturally from these beliefs. Included is the recommendation to “Develop improved climate and weather modeling capacity for local scale assessments.”
Interestingly, the report includes the following observation:
there are many opportunities for synergy between existing public health preparedness activities
(e.g. bioterrorism, pandemic flu, and all-hazard preparedness) and those addressing health threats from climate change.
