Advancing Community-Engaged Research to Address Climate Driven Health Disparities

ACE-CH Mission 

ACE-CH is a community-engaged alliance that promotes community driven, sustainable strategies addressing the impact of climate on populations disproportionately affected by social determinants of health and health disparities. ACE-CH evaluates community knowledge of the health impacts of climate stressors and builds partnerships with multiple stakeholders to encourage and build resiliency.

ACE-CH Objectives

• Support community-involved research to understand factors contributing to health inequities related to climate change.
• Measure the needs of affected communities across multiple areas (including but not limited to health).
• Determine community knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about the health impacts of climate change and the benefits of lessening and adapting to climate change.
• Identify, develop, and test effective community-engaged strategies to improve the adoption and use of climate-related health treatments or tools (such as early weather warning systems, disaster response and recovery, etc.).
• Build trust and strong partnerships with all interested parties that encourage climate-change adaptation and reduction, exchange knowledge, and improve awareness of local climate-change issues.

ACE-CH Awardees

University of Alaska Fairbanks | Alaska Alliance for Community Engagement – Climate and Health (AK ACE-CH) 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS Stacy Rasmus and Karsten Hueffer 

The AK ACE-CH team focuses on Indigenous knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about climate and its impacts on health and well-being in Alaska. The team is developing and pilot-testing strategies to assess multi-level risk and resilience factors in rural Alaska Native communities in two high-impact regions of the state, the Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) and the Interior regions. 

AK ACE-CH FOCUS: Food systems impacts, Infectious disease, Mental health

Public Health Institute | Climate Health Adaptation and Resilience Mobilizing (CHARM) Lake County Project

 PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR Susan Paulukonis 

The Public Health Institute (PHI) team works to understand the health impacts of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and heat events on disproportionately affected populations, such as American Indian Tribal communities, immigrants, and agricultural workers. The team is establishing continuous community engagement structures with local Tribes and community-based organizations to address HABs and extreme heat in Lake County, California. 

CHARM LAKE COUNTY FOCUS Extreme heat, Harmful algal blooms

University of Colorado School of Public Health | Mountain West ACE-CH Hub: Climate Change Engagement Platform to Support Resilient Rural and Urban Communities (MW ACE-CH) 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS Katherine Dickinson and Katherine James 

The MW ACE-CH Hub explores how Mountain West’s rural and urban communities are experiencing climate stressors by identifying community-driven priorities and opportunities to advance climate justice and build capacity for research and action. The hub engages communities in conversations and collective storytelling to facilitate learning, establishes partnerships and identifies resources to plan for climate resilience, and supports youth engagement to encourage intergenerational capacity. 

MW ACE-CH FOCUS: Poor air quality, Drought, Wildfires, Extreme heat 

University of Southern California | Community-Driven Approaches for Environmental Justice and Health in the Face of the Climate Crisis: Prioritizing Local Action for Climate Equity (PLACE Study) 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR Jill Johnston

The PLACE Study team focuses on community-driven approaches to environmental justice and health among families, immigrants, people of color, unhoused individuals, and elderly communities in historically marginalized areas of Los Angeles and the City of Carson. The team uses spatial approaches to assess neighborhood-scale vulnerability, such as community air-monitoring networks in climate justice neighborhoods. 

PLACE STUDY FOCUS: Extreme heat, Air pollution, Wildfires