CPCA Highlights Climate Change & the Impact on Health Equity at Annual Conference
To kick-off the 2022 Annual Conference, CPCA offered a pre-conference event, Meeting the Moment: Addressing Climate Change Now, which brought together leaders and stakeholders addressing climate change as an imperative issue for health centers. Sessions focused on the impact of climate change on health centers and patients from diverse perspectives including climate change as a health issue; advocacy and sustainable infrastructure for health centers; and climate change as an environmental justice and health equity issue. CPCA’s President and CEO, Francisco J. Silva Esq., provided the opening remarks, highlighting climate change as a public health, environmental justice, and equity issue and how health centers are positioned to combat the health impacts of climate change.
The event featured three plenary and two panel sessions where participants learned from experts and each other. Highlights included the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment as well as Kaiser Permanente and Climate Health Now joining to discuss how climate change is a health issue and what strategies health centers can implement to combat those health impacts as well as how health centers can “green” their facilities and operations. Then, Danielle Frank of the Hoopa Tribe and Dr. Yohanna Barth Rogers of the University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA) led an engaging conversation on climate change as an environmental justice and equity issue, and Lily Kelly from La Clinica de La Raza and Beth Herrmann from Open Door Community Health Centers guided participants through their experience developing a climate change workgroup at their organizations and the initiatives they successfully implemented. The final session featured a presentation from Ben Money of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and Meighen Speise of ecoAmerica and their involvement in climate change and environmental justice efforts at health centers across the U.S.
Additionally, CPCA offered a climate change and health center resiliency-focused break-out session to Annual Conference attendees, Powered by the Sun: Benefits of Solar Powered Microgrids for Resiliency and Financial Savings. During this session, CPCA’s Associate Director of Health Center Operations, Amanda Carbajal, detailed the recent impacts of climate change in California, including years of record-breaking wildfires, floods, and high wind events, and how those events have led to increasing power shutoffs, impacting health center operations and patient care. Next, session attendees heard from Andrew MacCalla of Collective Energy Company and Rebecca Regan of Capital Link on how a solar + battery microgrid works; the cost-benefit analysis; new rules and rebates, incentives, federal energy equity initiatives and financing options. Dr. Mitesh Popat of Marin Community Clinics closed the session by sharing the health center’s experience adding a solar-powered microgrid to achieve power resiliency.