Making extreme weather health impacts visible through household energy, climate, and sustainability policies in frontline communities

Our goal is to reduce heat-related health impacts for frontline urban communities, focusing on climate, sustainability, and household energy policies in the U.S. Our aims are: 1) synthesize the U.S. landscape of climate, sustainability, and household energy policies that impact extreme temperature resilience, and investigate the Global South landscape; 2) map local heat vulnerability data and elevate the lived experience of residents of frontline communities in three U.S. cities: Boston, New Orleans, and Phoenix; 3) Pilot a new extreme temperature-health risk tool to visualize the benefits of interventions, and expand local networks in Boston, New Orleans, and Phoenix, engaging with local government, stakeholders, residents, and community organizations, and 4) make temperature-related health risks and corresponding solutions more visible through local and global communications and engagement with key stakeholders, in collaboration with China Dialogue Trust. We will leverage our transdisciplinary teams experience in community engaged climate & health research and communications, data from the BUSPH Climate and Health Center, and multi-city partnerships to raise visibility of the adverse climate-related impacts of extreme temperatures on health, delivering tools for decision makers to quantify impacts, and create pathways to connect siloed policies to improve heat related health inequities in frontline communities.