CDC's Climate-Ready States & Cities Initiative

CDC is using its public health expertise to help state and city health departments prepare for and respond to the health effects that a changing climate may bring to their communities. Likely impacts include increased extreme weather events, wildfires, decreased air quality, and illnesses transmitted by food, water, and disease carriers such as mosquitoes and ticks.

CDC’s Climate-Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI) is helping grantees from 16 states and two cities use the five-step Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework to identify likely climate impacts in their communities, potential health effects associated with these impacts, and their most at-risk populations and locations. The BRACE framework then helps states develop and implement health adaptation plans and address gaps in critical public health functions and services.

The Climate and Health Program also funds two partners through the “Building Capacity of the Public Health System to Improve Population Health through National, Nonprofit Organizations” program managed by CDC’s Center for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support. These partners support tribes and territories’ climate and health work.

Specifically, the National Indian Health Board funds four tribes (Kaw Nation, Lummi Nation, the Pala Band of Mission Indians, and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska) through the Climate-Ready Tribes Program.external icon In addition, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officialsexternal icon funds climate and health work in the US Virgin Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

For more on the activities of health departments funded by CDC, see “Preparing for the Regional Health Impacts of Climate Change in the United States.” pdf icon[PDF – 4 MB]

For more information on the CRSCI or our work with tribes and territories, please contact our program at climateandhealth@cdc.gov.