Climate Change & Public Health Preparedness

Goal: Reduce climate-related health risks and promote community resilience, especially among people and communities who are disproportionately affected. 

Public health emergencies will continue to occur in the future.  Short-term events like drinking water utility outages, and more significant events like COVID-19 are examples of emergencies that affect the publics' health.  Climate change will likely affect future public health emergency events.  Hood River County Health Department utilizes an 'All Hazards' preparedness framework, meaning that our plans are adaptable to all hazards. 

As our climate changes, emergency events may become more challenging, frequent, and/or damaging.  Increased wildfire risk, leading to increase smoke, leading to increased asthma is an example.

Change will happen, and Hood River County Health Department is preparing for these changes.  These are examples of our adaptation strategies:

• Actively engage with priority communities so that underrepresented voices are centered in the development of climate policies, programs and public investments.
• Work with partner agencies on policies to improve and protect air quality and water security on the basis of health and environmental data, and remain proactive in identifying emerging, vectors, and diseases of concern related to climate change.
• Support community-driven and place-based climate adaptations by providing technical assistance, resources, training, and tools for community partners.