About the Climate and Community Health Initiative
Our Mission
The AHA’s Climate and Community Health initiative aims to offer guidance and resources to support hospitals’ efforts to assess, plan for and respond to the impacts of climate on communities’ health.
Background
The AHA’s Climate and Community Health initiative was established in 2024 to address the differential health risks posed by climate and environmental conditions on communities throughout the United States.
The initiative launched with the basic assumption that to promote health at the population level, hospitals have a vested interest in understanding and partnering to mitigate harm to health from climate and extreme weather events.
Many U.S. hospitals are already partnering with community stakeholders to prepare for and collaboratively address climate as a driver of population health outcomes. The Climate and Community Health initiative seeks to provide these and all hospitals with actionable tools to meet this need.
Our Goals
The Climate and Community Health initiative brings together hospital and health system leaders to discuss and examine their roles in fostering climate-resilient communities by expanding their existing community and population health strategies and by developing tools and resources to support this work.
Specifically, the initiative seeks to:
- Confer with a technical expert panel.
- Convene climate and community health workshops.
- Produce tactical snapshot reports to disseminate insights from each workshop.
- Create a comprehensive climate and community health report summarizing insights from the workshops.
- Develop a climate as a social driver of health toolkit.
- Host additional learning opportunities during the 2025 & 2026 Accelerating Health Equity Conferences.
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Climate and Community Health Workshop
Grounding Our Work
The Climate and Community Health initiative’s work is based on input provided by:
- A panel of cross-sector subject matter experts.
- Existing evidence, leading practices and pragmatic tools and resources from the health care delivery field.
- Hospital and community organization leaders engaged in this work.