The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) recognizes the serious health consequences of climate change. Extreme heat, for example, can exacerbate asthma, trigger heart attacks and strokes and lead to death. Droughts affect food production and prices, and can contribute to increased malnutrition and undernutrition. To build a Culture of Health, the nation must deal with the consequences of climate change with a focus on the most vulnerable or at-risk. Indeed, one way to measure our nation’s progress toward a Culture of Health is by looking at the policies and measures that state and local governments put in place to ready communities for unavoidable climate change—whether that’s ensuring health care, public health and social services systems are ready to respond to and manage the illness, injuries and other effects brought on by acute climate change events or establishing standards for air quality, targets for emissions or requirements for housing development to mitigate climate change and benefit health. Click here to visit the RWJF website.
