LA CLIMATE AND HEALTH WORKSHOPS 

The LA Climate & Health Workshop Series is one of the activities that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is using to build healthier communities in Los Angeles that are more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

The workshop series was developed in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health. Dr. Hilary Godwin and her doctoral students designed lectures and brainstorming sessions to meet the needs of the Department of Public Health.

Each workshop features:

  • A lecture that is 20 minutes or less.
  •  An interactive brainstorming that is planned to last 40 minutes. The brainstorming sessions allow staff to engage with material and generate ideas that inform the Department of Public Health’s climate action planning.

Workshop materials are provided here as a template for other public health departments to modify to train their own staff. We ask that you give appropriate credit to the team that developed the series. Below you’ll find recordings of the seminars, PDF copies of the presentation slides, and instructions for conducting the brainstorming sessions.

Workshop 1:  10 Things Every Public Health Professional Should Know About Climate Change 

This seminar presents the science behind climate change, with a particular focus on correcting widely-held misconceptions. In the activity that follows, workshop participants brainstorm climate change adaptation and mitigation activities and who has the authority to conduct these activities.

Workshop 2: What the Experts Predict the Climate Will Be Like in LA County in 2050 and 2100

Our ability to develop effective plans to reduce the local impacts of climate change requires an understanding of specific impacts to the local area. Projections for your local area are also critical to spurring engagement and making climate change a concrete reality for your staff. We recommend working with your local institution in order to provide the best available climate change projections to your staff. During the brainstorming activity, participants think about what stakeholders should be involved in a local climate action planning process.

Workshop 3: How to Apply Adaptive Management in the Context of Climate Action Planning

This seminar discusses how adaptive management, a framework that embraces uncertainty, can be used to mitigate and more effectively manage the impacts of climate change on the public’s health.  In the activity that follows, participants brainstorm in teams about different ways that local health departments can monitor and evaluate public health responses to climate change, using extreme heat events as an example.  

Workshop 4: Vulnerable Populations and Co-benefits of Climate Change Adaptation

Los Angeles is the most populated and diverse county in the United States.  This seminar discusses efforts to identify and map the groups of people in the County that are most vulnerable to climate change and discuss the benefits of leveraging climate change adaptation measures to benefit public health. In the activity that follows, participants develop strategies for engaging critical stakeholder groups in climate action planning.

Workshop 5: How to Communicate Climate Change Related Risks to Critical Stakeholders

This seminar discusses effective strategies for communicating risk to promote behavioral change.  In the activity that follows, participants work in teams on case studies in which you, as public health professionals, are asked to communicate to community members about the impacts of a specific climate-change related event.

 

If you would like more information about these workshops or modifiable versions of the materials, please contact Dr. Hilary Godwin at hgodwin@ucla.edu or Dr. Elizabeth Rhoades at erhoades@ph.lacounty.gov. 

PARTNERS