*Note: The CDC Building Resilience Against Climate Effects Framework is undergoing updates. See
BRACE Framework below for more details.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Climate and Health Program began the Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI) in 2010 to help grant recipients use the five-step
Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework to identify likely climate impacts, potential health effects associated with these impacts, and at-risk populations and locations. The work being done by grant recipients operationalizing the BRACE Framework contributes to positive long-term outcomes by reducing the negative health impacts of climate change among communities facing inequities. CDPHās Climate Change and Health Equity Branch is one of the 13 current BRACE grant recipients. In California, the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Department of Public Health are also direct BRACE recipients.
The California Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (CalBRACE) Project seeks to address the public health impacts of the climate crisis in California by establishing a robust institutional capacity to lead climate adaptation and mitigation planning, actions, and evaluations that enhance population resilience, health, and racial equity. CalBRACE engages in policy, systems, and environmental changes with communities to improve the living conditions of people facing inequities, to lessen vulnerability to the health impacts of climate change and improve population-level health and equity outcomes. Grounded in public health practice, this project leverages state, tribal, local, academic, and community partnerships to develop and maintain a climate and health equity data visualization tool, implement and evaluate adaptation actions that respond to identified climate hazards, disseminate lessons learned, and improve determinants of health equity.
The CalBRACE Projectās evidence-based tools help to prioritize resources and technical assistance for communities facing disproportionate health impacts due to climate exposures that compound existing inequities. The negative impacts of the climate crisis on health are exacerbated by structural racism, which inhibits access to transportation, healthy foods, safe places, high-road jobs, economic security, and protection from extreme weather.[1] Explicitly naming and addressing inequities based on racism improves climate resilience and health among people of color and all people, as everyone fares better in more equal societies. [2]
Project Goals
With communications, engagement, data, tools, and technical assistance with internal CDPH and external partners and stakeholders, the CalBRACE Project aims to achieve stronger partnerships, increased knowledge of resilience actions and an enhanced evidence base for effective climate and health adaptation actions. The project incorporates activities and resources to build climate resilience for and with communities with high susceptibility to climate hazards and historical and continuing disinvestment. The project also provides consultative services and evaluation for planning and implementation strategies to improve living conditions and increase adaptive capacity and resilience and disseminates new evidence to the public health field at the nexus of climate change, health, and equity.
Desired Project outcomes include:
- Widespread adoption, replication, and expansion of health-protective adaptation actions by climate resilience-focused public health practitioners
- Reduced negative health outcomes in regions and among populations at greater risk of adverse effects of climate change
- Enhanced evidence base for effective climate and health adaptation and resilience actions
Project Activities
Community Health Workers, Healthy Homes, and Healthy Families Pilot Weatherization Project in Tulare County, CA
The CHWs, Healthy Homes, and Healthy Families weatherization pilot project is implementing weatherization and energy efficiency improvements as protective health interventions for low-income families and farmworker communities in Tulare County, California. Tulare County is at high risk of health impacts from increasing heat associated with the changing climate. The County experienced an average of four extreme heat days above 92.9 degrees F per year from 1961-1990, an average of six per year from 1990-2004, and there are projected to be an average of 42 days of extreme heat per year by mid-century and 70 days per year by the end of the century. With the increased frequency of heat waves in Tulare County, children, people with pre-existing health conditions, outdoor workers, financially burdened households, unhoused individuals, and populations without access to air conditioning, cooling centers, or shelters will be particularly susceptible to heat-related illnesses. In Tulare County, 14 percent of households were without air conditioning in 2009 compared to 36 percent statewide. In partnership with Kaweah Health, the Association for Energy Affordability (AEA), and Proteus, Inc, the pilot program is connecting low-income residents with energy-efficiency and weatherization services to improve housing conditions, reduce health risks and improve resilience to heat and air pollution.
Potential services available to weatherize a home
Source: BayREN
Community Health Workers and community members supporting
the weatherization pilot project
Testimonies from Farmworker Leaders Experiencing Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke: A Partnership with Achieving Resilient Communities and StoryCenter
Farmworkers are 20 times more likely to die from heat-related illness than the U.S. workforce overall. To increase awareness and inform policymaking and public health programming, farmworker leaders from the
Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) and
Lideres Campesinas participated in a digital storytelling workshop to share their lived experience with extreme heat and wildfire smoke through short videos. The CDPH CalBRACE project provided funding and support to
StoryCenter and the
Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC) project who led efforts to conduct the workshop and develop the videos. The ARC project is a collaboration of multiple
Public Health Institute programs, including
Tracking California. In-kind support for the workshop was provided by Cigna Foundation, the American Public Health Association (APHA), and the CDC.
Watch the full video series
on YouTube here and view the first video below.
The series contents are solely the responsibility of the storytellers which do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the California Department of Public Health, or the California Health and Human Services Agency.
Technical Assistance to California Tribes
The Local Assistance Unit of the Climate Change and Health Equity Branch provides
climate and health equity technical assistance to Tribes. We equip Tribes to serve their own populations and forge partnerships that increase overall capacity to reduce risks and build resilience to climate change. Additional case studies looking at Tribes' work on climate change and health equity are being developed.
California Climate and Health Case Stories: The Local Health Department Actions
This series of case stories highlights how local health jurisdictions (LHJs) are addressing climate change as a public health threat. LHJs have important roles in helping California reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework provides LHJs an evidenced-based process to identify climate impacts in their communities, potential effects associated with these impacts, and their most at-risk populations. We are working to support LHJs and the following are profiles from counties across California who are working on climate change and health.