Public Health
Cool roofs, cool pavements, and urban greening can reduce urban temperatures as much as up to 12°F. If widely implemented, these tools could reduce the impacts of climate change on Los Angeles through midcentury.
Climate change means Los Angeles will be hotter, much hotter by the middle of the century.
City streets, parking lots and roofs absorb heat and increase temperatures as much as 6°F during the day and 22°F at night.
Warmer temperatures will worsen air quality and create serious health impacts for residents.
Wildfires, reduced water quality and vector borne diseases will also increase due to climate change and pose health impacts.
Climate change is anticipated to negatively affect the health of Angelenos in a variety of ways, most significantly through extreme temperatures, worsening air quality, more acres burned by wildfires, and a higher incidence of certain vector-borne diseases.
While all Angelenos will be impacted to some degree, certain segments of the population are more vulnerable to negative health outcomes. Low-income and minority populations in particular are more likely to be exposed to climate-related impacts and less likely to have the resources to adapt to them. These disproportionate impacts to already-disadvantaged populations are a reminder that climate change is an important equity issue.
Despite these challenges, however, climate change also presents an opportunity to create healthier, more resilient, and more equitable communities. Many, if not most, of the targets, priorities, and actions outlined in the Framework represent what the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change terms “no-regret” options that can be “win-wins” for the region across different fronts. Actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions often have notable health co-benefits. For instance, promoting active transportation not only reduces vehicle miles traveled but also improves air quality and promotes physical activity, lessening the burden of chronic disease. As such, climate change forces us to rethink “business as usual” practices and enables new pathways for partnerships, solutions, and funding opportunities across multiple sectors and agencies.
The Framework recommends the following goals and strategies to reduce the public health impacts of climate change:
Goal 1 The LADHP, in collaboration with the county’s Chief Sustainability Officer, should facilitate partnerships among local governments, academics, and nonprofits to better understand and lessen the impacts of climate change on health Read more
-
Strategy 1
Increase research and surveillance on climate-related illnesses and deaths
-
Action 1
Establish criteria for and implement routine surveillance of climate-related illnesses and deaths, as well as climate vulnerability and resilience, across the region (e.g. neighborhood heat indices, shade, social support, and transportation access); define the risks and outcomes to be mandatorily reported and set up reporting metrics.
-
Action 2
Expand the use of syndromic surveillance (analysis of medical data to detect or anticipate disease outbreaks) of climate-related health effects to provide real-time information for public health action (e.g. real-time heat illness surveillance).
-
Action 3
Increase partnerships among public health practitioners and climate science researchers to integrate climate information and services into public health action (e.g. use of seasonal temperature and rainfall forecasts to implement heightened vector-born disease surveillance and interventions).
-
Action 1
-
Strategy 2
Connect climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies to health risk reduction programs and activities
-
Action 1
Incorporate climate change education, mitigation, and adaptation strategies into health risk reduction activities (e.g. combined home health and climate assessments, advancing heat mitigation strategies during household visits).
-
Action 2
Incorporate health risk reduction factors into climate risk reduction activities (e.g. address indoor air quality in energy efficiency and weatherization retrofits).
-
Action 1
Goal 2 Reduce urban-rural temperature differentials Read more
-
Strategy 1
Expand and maintain the urban tree canopy, where tree maintenance and potential for trapped heat do not outweigh the benefits, and appropriate shade structures, including planting native bushes that provide canopy
-
Action 1
Adopt a tree-planting ordinance and native canopy-providing shrubs pertaining to Los Angeles County unincorporated areas that prioritizes low-maintenance and drought tolerant trees and shrubs.
-
Action 2
Pursue funding for planting appropriate trees and shrubs in low-income neighborhoods.
-
Action 3
Streamline procedures to request tree and shrub planting in public rights-of-way.
-
Action 4
Secure funding for maintenance of new, drought-tolerant trees and shrubs by government agencies.
-
Action 1
-
Strategy 2
Increase reflective surfaces such as cool roofs and cool and permeable pavements, after considering the negative potential impacts of increased localized heat during the day
-
Action 1
Adopt cool roofs ordinances in Los Angeles County cities and unincorporated areas.
-
Action 2
Explore potential for cool and permeable pavements, particularly for parks, playgrounds, parking lots, and alleys.
-
Action 3
Identify priority areas for reducing urban heat island based on population, sociological demographics, and infrastructure characteristics.
-
Action 1
-
Strategy 3
Reduce incidence of heat-related illness as well as excess emergency room visits during extreme heat events
-
Strategy 4
Improve outreach to vulnerable populations before and during extreme heat events
-
Action 1
Develop maps of vulnerable populations and of geographic incidences of past heat-related illness and death to inform planning.
-
Action 2
Use the “reverse 911 system” (a public safety communications system to communicate with groups of people in a defined geographic area) or a voluntary notification system to alert vulnerable residents before and during extreme heat events.
-
Action 3
Develop a system through which organizations that serve or employ vulnerable populations receive targeted messaging during extreme heat events.
-
Action 1
-
Strategy 5
Improve infrastructure to serve vulnerable populations during extreme heat events, including conservation measures in residential buildings
-
Action 1
Designate official cooling centers in neighborhoods that are currently lacking them.
-
Action 2
Improve access to official cooling centers, via public transit or other options.
-
Action 3
Update and retrofit housing in vulnerable areas to be more resilient to heat.
-
Action 4
Develop programs to provide air conditioners to those individuals most vulnerable to serious heat-related health impacts and without economic resources.
-
Action 5
Provide vouchers through ridesharing companies to those with health conditions during heat emergencies.
-
Action 1
-
Strategy 6
Reduce the use of internal combustion engines and fossil fuel-generated heating and cooling
-
Action 1
Accelerate the transition to electrification throughout the region and the adoption of electric vehicles and electric public transportation systems.
-
Action 2
Accelerate alternative transportation options from bicycle lanes to walkability to alternative intermediate share vehicles such as electric bicycles and small electric vehicles.
-
Action 3
Increase thermal comfort of buildings through whole-house retrofits to reduce the need for heating and cooling.
-
Action 1
Goal 3 Reduce building in fire-prone ecosystems Read more
-
Strategy 1
Reduce building in the urban/wildland interface through policies such as density bonuses, transfer of development rights, and zoning and building codes that inhibit further fragmentation and intrusion of development in fire-prone wildlands
-
Action 1
Prohibit further development in the urban-wildland interface, responsible for accelerating wildfires, through transfer of development rights or other mechanisms.
-
Action 2
Ensure native habitat is preserved in the urban-wildland interface to ensure ecosystem and habitat resilience, water infiltration, and flood protection.
-
Action 3
Enable the greater use of controlled burning to reduce fire risk in the surrounding National Forest.
-
Action 1
