Using Greenspace to Cope with Climate-Related Health Challenges
Using greenspace, green infrastructure, and other nature-based solutions to benefit the health and well-being of vulnerable communities in urban areas.
New Report
EPA is developing a new report to assess the ability of nature-based solutions (NbS) to address climate-change-induced stresses on human health and well-being in response to concerns from local decision-makers, city planners, and community groups. Of particular concern is health in communities that may be vulnerable with respect to age, race, occupation, economic means, environmental injustice, or other circumstances.
The team will synthesize the most up-to-date scientific evidence to explore how specific NbS alleviate (or fail to alleviate or worsen) climate-induced health and well-being challenges experienced by vulnerable communities in urban areas. We will initially focus on urban settings in the U.S. or outside the U.S. that share climate, climate change, social, demographic, and NbS with the U.S.
To focus our synthesis, we are leveraging expertise within EPA and engaging with external partners.
We Want to Hear From You!
- What do you wish you knew about the health impacts of greenspace in your city/region? What information gaps exist in planning for greenspace in your city/region/area?
- What kinds of information and tools does your organization need to move forward on your public health and greenspace goals?
Potential Products
- Evidence maps showing which combinations of stressors, solutions, vulnerabilities, and health endpoints have been studied in scientific publications.
- Conceptual models linked to published evidence showing how and under what conditions (e.g., specific geographies) solutions alleviate, fail to alleviate, or worsen the health and well-being of vulnerable communities under stress from climate change.
- Syntheses of priority stressor-solution-vulnerability-health combinations for which sufficient published evidence exists. For example, a synthesis may address a question of the following form.
- How and at what scales do street trees function to alleviate extreme heat-related asthma in children in urban areas of the southwestern U.S.?
- How and at what scales do parks function to alleviate climate change-related anxiety in low-income communities in urban areas of the Great Lakes region of the U.S.?
- Proposals for follow-up research addressing identified gaps in evidence.
Ultimately, we hope that our partners will apply our findings to widely implement NbS in urban areas that improve equitable health and well-being outcomes for vulnerable communities nationwide.
Challenges and Opportunities
Initial impressions of the scientific literature indicate some elements within the current project scope may need more evidence.
For instance:
- The potential to address health challenges with NbS under future climate-induced stress (not just current climate stress),
- The potential to address health challenges with NbS for communities that are vulnerable for reasons other than age or economic means,
- The physical, historical, or social attributes of NbS that are directly or indirectly responsible for alleviating, failing to alleviate, or worsening health challenges,
- An understanding of the temporal and spatial scales at which health benefits or burdens emerge and
- An understanding of cumulative health benefits and burdens of NbS.
Next Steps
Planning for interactions with external partners.
These discussions will involve the cross-EPA working group to establish the goals of engagement, who to engage, how to engage them, possible inputs to and outputs of engagement, and plans for continued interaction.
For more information on how to get involved, contact Rebecca Panko at panko.rebecca@epa.gov