Prepared by Kim Perrotta, CHASE, April 2024
Communities can Fight Climate Change at a Local Level
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that communities can help fight climate change at a local level by transforming infrastructure, supporting new technologies, and promoting sustainable lifestyles. Among the local climate solutions, the IPCC includes the following:
- Investments in local and inter-city public transit;
- Development of walkable communities;
- Creation of safe and connected cycling and pedestrian infrastructure;
- Developing or retrofitting buildings to reduce energy use and prepare for the changing climate with low-carbon energy, architectural design and materials, and nature-based solutions such as green roofs; and
- Enhancing carbon sinks with nature-based infrastructure such as trees and forests.[1]
Local Climate Solutions Produce Immediate Health and Health Equity Benefits
The first Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, published in 2015, maintained that many of the actions needed to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) will also produce immediate and significant public health benefits for the jurisdictions that take action.[2] Several studies have concluded that the health-related cost savings from climate action can, at times, outweigh the costs of the measures taken to reduce GHG emissions.[3], [4] By engaging in discussions about climate change solutions (i.e., actions that reduce GHG emissions) public health agencies can help gain broader support for those solutions, while also working to ensure that the potential health and health equity benefits associated with them, are considered and realized.
Public Health Can Help Win Climate Actions
Communication research indicates that people are more likely to support climate policies when they know that those actions can produce immediate health benefits for them or their families. For example, a US study found that the public can be motivated to support climate solutions when presented with the health risks presented by climate change, the health benefits associated with climate solutions, and clear calls to action. That study found that communications were most effective when all three messages were combined and that the combined messages appear to appeal to “people across the political spectrum”.[5] Communication surveys also indicate that health professionals are highly respected by the public in Canada.[6] This suggests that public health can play an important role in gaining public support for climate solutions.
Public Health Case Studies
We, at CHASE, in collaboration with the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) and the Ontario Public Health Association (OPHA), set out to collect examples of work being done by public health agencies in Canada that are influencing one of the five local climate solutions identified above. While not necessarily representative of the work being done, the 10 case studies highlight strategies and approaches that have been used effectively to influence local policies that affect GHG emissions, population health, and health equity.
Intersectoral Collaboration is Essential
In all of these case studies, public health professionals are working across sectors to influence different elements of the built environment. The form of these collaborations varies depending on the context in which the agencies are working. Three of the public health agencies examined are arms-length agencies of the province, two are departments within regional municipalities, two are departments within local municipalities, and two report to independent boards of health with representatives from several different communities.
In large urban centres, public health agencies are often working directly on policies and implementation documents with staff in other departments or with key officials who are responsible for the municipal policies being developed. In smaller communities, public health staff are more likely to be engaged in collective impact processes; facilitating, or participating in, processes with citizens and community groups, as well as staff and decision-makers from the local communities. Among the 10 case studies conducted, there were five different approaches to inter-sectoral collaboration:
- Co-locating public health staff in the planning department;
- Establishing an equity-based planning process for regional operations;
- Collaborating between departments within regional or local municipalities;
- Collaborating between public health agencies that are arms-length agencies of the province and key official in municipal agencies; and
- Collective impact processes at a local level.
More information on these case studies are found at https://chasecanada.org/public-health-addressing-health-health-equity-and-climate-change/.
Climate Change Mitigation is Not Always Acknowledged
Most of the people interviewed for this project believe that the interventions they are promoting will reduce GHGs emissions that are causing climate change. In most cases however, climate change mitigation is not openly identified as a goal for their work, although climate change adaptation may be. In most cases, the work is being done to improve population health and health inequity with no mention of climate change. For three of the 10 public health cases, climate change mitigation is an explicit goal, along with climate change adaptation and promoting health and health equity.
Senior Management Support is Pivotal
A common theme in many of the case studies is the valuable role that senior managers, such as directors, medical officers of health/medical health officers, and chief executive officers, can play when public health is engaging with other sectors or other levels of government. For example, in Niagara Region, the Acting Medical Officer of Health laid the groundwork for the Equity-Informed Planning Process by educating regional councillors about health equity and the social determinants of health and recognizing the opportunity to fold equity-informed planning into the region’s operational plans.
Resources Need to be Committed and Relationships Cultivated
When discussing lessons learned from their work, most of the public health professionals identified the importance of cultivating relationships across sectors/jurisdictions in order to have a positive influence on policies and plans that shape their communities. Many expressed the view that this requires time, resources, and a long-term commitment, on the part of the public health agency. For example, in Ottawa, it was explained that “We can’t just pass along the health evidence and walk away…we need to be in the room; to understand the other factors that need to be considered; to inform conversations; and to find a way to balance health goals with all of the factors, needs, and realities.”
Socially and Materially Disadvantaged Populations Need to be Engaged
In the case studies that employed collective impact processes, people described the broad network of people that need to be engaged in those processes and the importance of engaging those citizens and groups that are frequently marginalized in our society. For example, in the small Town of Haliburton, where the public health staff and their community members wanted to address health inequities in their active transportation work, they found that it was essential to take consultation processes to high school students and to adults living in long-term care. Staff explained, “It is critical to engage under-served populations within the community that might be affected by the existing infrastructure or proposed changes. It is important to take the consultation processes to those populations…Do not presume that these residents will have the time or capacity to attend and articulate their needs at one consultation meeting planned in a central location for the entire community.”
Specialized Training can be Helpful
Several public health agencies have staff with specialized or trans-disciplinary training doing inter-sectoral policy work. For example, the Built Environment Team in Vancouver Coastal Health includes a Senior Planner who has a master’s degree in planning and an Environmental Health Scientist who has a master’s degree in public health where she specialized in environmental epidemiology.
Increased and Sustainable Funding for Public health
The public health sector in Canada requires increased and sustained funding to meet the growing demands for public health expertise and service. Almost every public health person interviewed mentioned the strain that the COVID-19 pandemic placed on their resources. More than half of those interviewed indicated that all of their policy work came to a halt in 2020 until well into 2023 because they were re-assigned to support the pandemic response. Several public health staff from other public health agencies declined the invitation to be interviewed in the latter half of 2022 because their agency’s resources were still directed towards the pandemic.
With global warming causing more severe health risks and impacts in communities across the country, most public health agencies are stretched to the limit. Not only do they need to respond to health-related impacts associated with wildfires, floods, and extreme heat, they also need to be involved in the development and implementation of climate change vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans to ensure that population health and health equity considerations are identified and properly addressed.
While it is essential that public health prepare for, and respond to, emerging and urgent situations such as those presented by the pandemic and extreme climate-related events, chronic diseases are responsible for a significant and growing share of the health impacts and health care costs in Canada, and global warming poses an existential threat to life on the planet. These issues demand a preventive policy response from public health along with all other sectors in society. Public health has demonstrated that it can help achieve public policies that can reduce chronic diseases, health inequities, and GHGs, by bringing health evidence and health expertise to the table. If public health is not involved in local discussions related to the re-design and re-development of our communities, however, opportunities to improve health and health equity may well be missed.
To learn more, see:
- The report prepared by CHASE with the CPHA and the OPHA: CLIMATE CHANGE, POPULATION HEALTH AND HEALTH EQUITY: Public health strategies and five climate solutions that produce health and health equity benefits.
- Report of the Chief Public Health Officer: Mobilizing Public Health Action on Climate Change.
[1] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2018. Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C approved by governments.
[2] Watts Nick et al. 2015. Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health. Lancet 386: 1861–914.
[3] Gouldson A et al. 2018. The Economic and Social Benefits of Low-Carbon Cities: A Systematic Review of the Evidence. (2018). Coalition for Urban Transitions, London and Washington, DC.
[4] Markandya A et al. 2018. Health co-benefits from air pollution and mitigation costs of the Paris Agreement: a modelling study. Lancet Planetary Health 2
[5] Kotcher John et al. 2021. Advocacy messages about climate and health are more effective whenthey include information about risks, solutions, and a normative appeal:Evidence from a conjoint experiment Journal of Climate Change and Health. Vol. 3. August.
[6] Canada’s Most Respected. 2023. Canada’s most respected occupations 2022. https://canadasmostrespected.com/occupations-2022/
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