
Community Health and Environment
Assessing Impact and Improving Resilience
Environmental conditions directly impact health, and hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations play a vital role in supporting environment-resilient communities.
Beyond the immediate impacts of weather events on the health of a community, ongoing environmental conditions can exacerbate acute and chronic health conditions, creating additional health disparities for the affected population. Protecting the health care workforce and their patients from environmental challenges requires tactical guidance and multisector coordination.
Hospitals and health systems have a vested interest in understanding the impacts of the environment on community health and in learning to help mitigate harm from the environment and extreme weather events.
Community Health and Environment
The AHA aims to offer resources to support hospitals’ efforts to assess, plan for and respond to the impacts of the environment on communities’ health.

Assessing Impact
A technical expert panel will identify leading practices, tools and resources that can help hospitals and health systems integrate environmental resilience into their community health strategies. Read about the TEP members.

Improving Resilience
Resources, including snapshot reports, will be shared with the field as part of this initiative. In addition, a comprehensive toolkit covering the environment as a social driver of health is in development. Learn more.