Health Care Leaders Tackle Boston’s Extreme Weather Readiness and Mitigation Through ‘Resilience 2.0’
The connection between health care institutions and communities they serve is especially critical during and after extreme weather events. In Boston, public policy makers and health care institutions are focusing on improving health care’s resilience to climate change impacts with an emphasis on community health and resilience.
Health Care Without Harm convened a summit, made possible in part by sponsorship support from The Barr Foundation and co-hosted by Partners HealthCare, to catalyze climate action planning for metro Boston with more than 100 health care service providers and community stakeholders.
In addition to providing updates on the interconnected climate resiliency initiatives happening within the area, the one-day event fostered a new dialogue about the role of the health care sector in anchoring community health and resilience. It also created a network of organizations and champions who know what each other does and can find ways to provide mutual, complementary support.
Summit outcomes detailed in this report are relevant beyond Boston and address health care sector engagement in climate public policy, a business case for climate-resilient health care, innovative solutions to backup and reliable power generation for health care facilities and community providers, and developing partnership networks.
