Care for your health, care for our climate
ClimateRx helps you to protect your health in a changing climate by providing information, guidance, and ways to take action.​
Your Health in a Changing Climate
Climate change creates new pressures and impacts on our health in a variety of ways. We can all take steps to prepare for the impacts of climate change and care for our health.
Vulnerable Populations
​While climate change affects all of us, certain communities, such as low-income communities, communities of color, people living with chronic disease or disability, children, and older adults, are more vulnerable to these impacts and face greater risks from climate change due to structural injustice and existing disparities.
Data coupled with stories of people’s lived experiences have demonstrated disproportionate impacts of environmental hazards to low-income populations and communities of color. Climate change exacerbates existing disparities and creates new threats.
Climate solutions present an opportunity to strengthen health equity within policies and practices in our communities. Promoting equitable climate and clean energy solutions will create a more healthy and prosperous future for everyone.
Image courtesy of 2018 National Climate Assessment
Take Action
Everyone experiences the impacts of climate change differently depending on many factors, including where you live. No matter where you are, there are ways you can take action:
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Learn about local risks and resources. ​​
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Prepare your family, friends, and neighbors by talking about these impacts and making plans for keeping each other safe.
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Advocate for initiatives and policies that protect communities from climate impacts.
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Engage in climate actions, starting with taking the Climate Ambassador Training. ​
Hover over the boxes below to find out more about specific risks from climate impacts and what you can do.
Severe Weather
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Climate change makes severe weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, inland flooding, and tornadoes more frequent and more extreme.
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Extreme weather is hazardous to your health both during the event and in the aftermath when you may lose power, water access, or have other unsafe conditions. These events and the aftermath can be traumatizing, with mental health effects that can persist even after the severe weather has ended.​
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What you can do: It’s important you understand what kind of severe weather may affect your area and make a plan with your family.
Extreme Heat
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Extreme heat is the most dangerous weather-related event and climate change is making heat waves last longer, happen more frequently, and reach higher temperatures.
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Certain groups , including outdoor workers, older adults, children, BIPOC, low income, and people living in heat islands – areas with lots of exposed cement – are at higher risk of experiencing harmful effects of extreme heat. ​
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What you can do: Monitor local temperature forecasts, learn to recognize the signs of heat illness, and identify community resources, like cooling shelters, to keep yourselves and others safe during extreme heat events, and continue learning.
Air Quality
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Emissions from cars, burning "natural gas" or coal for energy, and other uses of fossil fuels worsen air quality while contributing to climate change. Ozone from rising temperatures and smoke from wildfires are also worsening air quality and can affect large geographic areas.
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Poor air quality has many negative health impacts, from your lungs to your heart to your mental health.
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What you can do: Routinely monitor local air quality and avoid inhaling polluted air, both indoors and outdoors.
Vector-borne Diseases
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Diseases like Lyme, Dengue, West Nile, and Malaria are spread through bites of mosquitos and ticks.
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Warmer temperatures from climate change have increased the range of mosquitos and ticks, making it easier for them to live in much larger parts of the United States.
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What you can do: Learn about the vector-borne disease risks in your area and what you can do to protect yourself and others. For example: Wear protective clothing, including long sleeves, pants, and close-toed shoes, when in heavily wooded areas to help protect against mosquitoes and ticks.
Mental Health & Wellbeing
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Climate change has effects on health at multiple levels. Severe weather and emergencies can cause individual trauma and shock in the immediate aftermath.
There are also long-term impacts on mental health due to climate change. Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation increase due to the impacts of climate change and eco-anxiety.
Mental health is also affected at a community level by climate change, including loss of social cohesion, relationships, and even mass displacement. ​
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What you can do: Take action at home to be as prepared and resilient as you can be for potentially traumatizing events; taking action not only reduces risks, it also provides a necessary sense of agency and control.
