Frequently Asked Questions

• Climate change poses profound threats to health, and disproportionately impacts people of color and low-income communities.
• Action on climate change is urgent in order to protect and promote health.
• No health-based organization in the US currently brings together health care and public health professionals and organizations from across the nation to focus solely on the issue of climate change and health.
• Climate action and climate change policies present great opportunities to promote health and equity, but those opportunities will only be realized if health organizations and health professionals participate actively in the climate policy arena.
• We can synthesize, leverage, and synergize the good work we are all doing to be more effective and achieve greater impact.

People and organizations who want to do something about climate change, health, and equity and are working in public health, community health and health care:

• Health workers
• Public health, health care, health advocacy, and community health organizations
• Environmental justice, environmental, and science organizations that work on health issues.

• Support our capacity to serve as spokespeople and advocates on climate change and health.
• Coalesce the health voice to inform the public and policy makers about the impacts of climate change and climate actions on health and health equity.
• Serve as a place for us to share, network, and collaborate.
• Provide easy access to credible information and expertise on climate change and health, including for journalists and policy makers.
• Link and collaborate with partners and colleagues in other sectors and other nations.

• Provide up-to-date resources on health and climate change.
• Support member capacity to address climate change and health with tools such as presentations, talking points, and fact sheets.
• Provide a forum for communications and networking on climate and health, through conference calls, meetings, and a listserv.
• Identify opportunities for impactful health sector input in addressing climate change, at all levels of government.
• Conduct ongoing outreach and communications with organizations addressing climate change in other sectors and other nations.

Currently an all-volunteer organization, the work of the Alliance is driven by the activities of its members. In addition to full-Alliance phone meetings, the Alliance pursues its activities – with guidance from the Steering Committee – through two work groups: Policy, Materials/Education. The scope and scale of each Work Group’s activities is determined by the group members.

• Policy Work Group: The Policy Work Group identifies strategic opportunities for health sector engagement in policy at the local, state, and federal levels, to support and leverage the voice of health professionals and organizations.
• Materials/Education Work Group:
  • Supports the USCHA Climate and Health web-based Resources page
  • Identifies gaps in available materials and explores ways of filling those gaps
  • Collects, develops and shares training materials
  • Shares templates and examples of materials for use in the media and social media.