Using a Community of Practice to Advance Climate Science Methods in Public Health Practice

BACKGROUND:  The Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework was developed to increase resilience to the health effects of climate variability. To achieve this goal, health departments must incorporate climate science into routine practice. While many components of the epidemiologist’s toolbox are appropriate for climate and health applications, new tools (e.g., data sources and methods) must be acquired, learned, or developed to fully achieve this goal. As such, the Climate-Ready Cities and States grantees have developed several communities of practice to increase collaboration, and share methodologies and best practices. One such group is focused on the second step of the BRACE Framework, projecting the disease burden associated with long-term changes in climate, one of the more methodologically-challenging components.

METHODS: The objectives of the Climate-Sensitive Disease Projection Methods BRACE Community of Practice (Methods CoP) are to:

• explore methods for quantifying associations between climate and related environmental hazards and health outcomes;
• incorporate these associations into projections of climate-sensitive health outcomes; and
• develop best practices for public health agencies to quantify future climate-sensitive disease burdens.

While the main focus of the Methods CoP is BRACE Step 2, the topics covered will be broad and include a variety of climate hazards (e.g., heat waves, extreme weather events, wildfires), health outcomes (e.g., heat-related illness, birth outcomes, mental health), and methodologies (e.g., time-series and case-crossover analyses).

RESULTS:  We have surveyed CoP participants and identified the current needs for successful implementation of BRACE Step 2 among grantees. These include enhancing understanding of available climate data sources and global climate models, exploring methods for quantifying health burdens from climate hazards, and developing collaborations and relationships with other grantees and climatological experts. During the next 12 to 18 months, the Methods CoP will hold monthly webinars featuring technical experts, case studies from grantees, and group discussion to advance BRACE Step 2. We will also incorporate a PHConnects website for continued discussion and sharing of resources, as well as small group consultations to work through identified data or analysis issues or provide statistical assistance to participating programs.

CONCLUSIONS:  The expected outcomes of the Methods CoP are to describe the best methods for quantifying climate and health associations; grow a knowledge-base on the data and methods required to incorporate these associations into projections of climate-sensitive health outcomes; and develop best practices in projecting climate-associated disease burden to share with other grantees, partners, and non-BRACE states.