Americares helping health clinics hit hard by climate change
STAMFORD — Americares is helping to lead a pilot project that could aid health clinics across the country battle the impacts of climate change.
The Stamford-based global relief organization will team with Biogen and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health to create a program that will help health clinics in low-income areas disproportionately affected by climate change.
“It’s taking all the research that’s coming out about climate change and bringing it to the safety net health centers,” who might not have the time to do the research themselves, said Mariel Fonteyn, Americares associate director of emergency preparedness.
The project will start by focusing on nine clinics in California, North Carolina, Texas and Massachusetts, but will eventually expand to 150 clinics — including some in Connecticut — within the next three years, Fonteyn said. Americares has four free clinics in Connecticut, in Stamford, Norwalk, Danbury and Bridgeport.
Americares and its partners will develop a Climate Resilient Clinics Toolkit, which will include screening checklists for assessing patient vulnerability to climate change; disease management plans for patients and providers to prepare for heatwaves and other extreme events; and decision trees for clinic management during extreme weather.
The nine pilot clinics were chosen particularly because they are in areas ravaged by the effects of climate change, Fonteyn said. For instance, California’s infamous wildfire season starts sooner and ends later than in the past, she said. In Texas, Fonteyn said, problems include intense hurricane seasons, extreme heat, and the recent extreme winter storm that hit the state. “They get everything,” Fonteyn said.
As a result, she said, Texas faces a severe issue with power outages, which can have a trickle-down effect on people’s health. Speaking about the pateients at clinics there, Fonteyn said: “A large proportion of them have chronic conditions such as diabetes that require medication that needs refrigeration,” Fonteyn said.
When a power outage hits, these people can lose their medication “and the health clinics have to scramble to replace them and find ways to keep patients safe and alive,” she said.
The pilot project doesn’t just aim to address weather-related concerns, such as power outages, but also the health problems that can result from environmental challenges. One example Fonteyn presented was asthma related to poor air qualty.
She said the tool kit should help clinics “start thinking about and adjusting to some of this challenges.”
An official at one of the pilot clinics,San José Clinic in Houston, said she welcomes the assistance this project could provide. “Houston is a breeding ground for climate change,” said Neena Arora, the clinic’s chief operations officer. “Over the past few years, there’s been some type of weather event every year.”