CLIMATE CHANGE & HEALTH EQUITY

Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Indicators for California

Indicators, data, and narratives to assess exposures, social vulnerability and adaptive capacity

Background

The CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section developed climate change and health indicators, narratives, and data to provide local health departments and partners tools to better understand the people and places in their jurisdictions that are more susceptible to adverse health impacts associated with climate change, specifically extreme heat, wildfire, sea level rise, drought, and poor air quality. The assessment data can be used to screen and prioritize where to focus deeper analysis and plan for public health actions to increase resilience.

CCHVIz

View the new CCHVIz interactive data visualization platform for the Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Indicators:

Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Assessment Framework

Vulnerability assessments are a key tool to begin to prepare and plan for resilience to climate change and health impacts. A climate change and health vulnerability assessment helps to identify where a person’s or neighborhood’s susceptibilities to injury or disease exist due to their distance and sensitivity to climate-related environmental exposures or hazards. Adaptive capacity can offset the potential for injury and disease from exposure and sensitivity to hazards associated with climate change. Understanding more about neighborhoods and populations with multiple or complex social vulnerabilities can improve prioritization of efforts, inclusive planning, communication, and evaluation of adaptation and interventions developed to protect communities from the effects of climate change. The suite of domains and indicators developed by the CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section's CalBRACE Project is focused on assessing current and future climate change exposures (such as wildfires, extreme heat, air pollution, sea level rise, and drought), the people and places most susceptible to health risks from climate exposures, and the capacity to adapt to a changing climate. Also see: the CalBRACE Climate Change and Health Profile reports and Resources for adaptation planning for climate change and public health.

Climate Change & Health Vulnerability Data and Indicators

The CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section produced climate change and health vulnerability indicators for download using the links below. Each indicator includes the data in an Excel file as well as a narrative in PDF format. Each narrative describes the indicator’s significance to climate change and health, the evidence that links the indicator to health outcomes, data sources, bibliographic references, methodology, and limitations that impact the interpretation of the indicator. Examples of maps, charts, and tables are also included. We invite you to download the data and narrative files and use them to create maps, charts, and tables of your own counties and communities.

The most up to date climate change data for California can be viewed and downloaded from www.cal-adapt.com.

The indicators are organized in three domains: Environmental Exposures, Population Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity.

Environmental Exposures Domain Environmental exposure refers to the magnitude, frequency, and duration of an environmental exposure or disease risk.
Indicator Short Name	Indicator Definition	Excel Data	Narrative
Extreme Heat Days	Projected number of extreme heat days	extreme heat data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	extreme heat narrative (PDF) Revised February 2019
Air Quality (PM2.5)	Three-year annual mean concentration of particulate matter (PM2.5)	PM2.5 data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	PM2.5 narrative (PDF) Revised November 2018
Air Quality (Ozone)	Three-year average daily maximum ozone concentration	ozone data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	ozone narrative (PDF) Revised November 2018
Drought	Palmer Drought Severity Index	drought data	drought narrative (PDF)
Wildfires	Percent of population currently living in high fire risk hazard zone	wildfire data (XLSX)	wildfire narrative (PDF)
Sea Level Rise	Percent of population living in 100-year flood zone and 55 inches of sea level rise	sea level rise data (XLSX)	sea level rise narrative (PDF)

Population Sensitivity Domain Sensitivity refers to the physiological and socio-economic factors which directly or indirectly affect the degree to which a population is impacted by climate-related changes.
Indicator Short Name	Indicator Definition	Excel Data	Narrative
Children	Percent of population aged less than 5 years	children data (XLSX) Revised September 2018	children narrative (PDF) Revised February 2019
Elderly	Percent of population aged 65 years or older	elderly data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	elderly narrative (PDF) Revised February 2019
Poverty	Percent of population whose income in the past year was below poverty level	poverty data (XLSX, 6.6MB) Revised March 2019	poverty narrative (PDF) Revised April 2019
Education	Percent of population aged >=25 years with less than a four-year college educational attainment	education data (XLSX, 9.2MB) Revised June 2018	education narrative (PDF)
Race and Ethnicity	Percent of population of color	race/ethnicity data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	race/ethnicity narrative (PDF) Revised February 2019
Outdoor Workers	Percent of population employed and aged >=16 years working outdoors	outdoor workers data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	outdoor workers narrative (PDF) Revised April 2020
Vehicle Ownership	Percent of occupied households with no vehicle ownership	vehicle ownership data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	vehicle ownership narrative (PDF) Revised June 2019
Linguistic Isolation	Percent of households with no one aged >=14 years speaking English	linguistic isolation data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	linguistic isolation narrative (PDF) Revised June 2019
Physical and Mental Disability	Percent of population living with physical disability Percent of population living with mental disability	disability data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	disability narrative (PDF) Revised June 2019
Health Insurance	Percent of population without health insurance	health insurance data (XLSX) Revised October 2018	health insurance narrative (PDF) Revised April 2020
Violent Crime Rate	Number of violent crimes per 1,000 residents	violent crime data (XLSX)	violent crime narrative (PDF)

Adaptive Capacity Domain Adaptive capacity refers to the broad range of responses and adjustments to the impacts of climate change, including the capacity to moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, and cope with the consequences.
Indicator Short Name	Indicator Definition	Excel Data	Narrative
Air Conditioning	Percent of households without air conditioning	air conditioning data (XLSX)	air conditioning narrative (PDF)
Tree Canopy	Percent of area not covered by tree canopy	tree canopy data (XLSX)	tree canopy narrative (PDF)
Impervious Surfaces	Percent of area covered by impervious surfaces	impervious surfaces data (XLSX) Revised September 2019	impervious surfaces narrative (PDF) Revised September 2019
Public Transit Access	Percent of population not residing within 0.5 mile of bus/ferry/ferry stop with <15 minutes waiting time during peak commute hours	public transit access data	public transit access narrative (PDF)

Products

Data and Indicators: Excel files with data for California, its counties, cities, towns, and census tracts (depending on availability) and narratives in PDF files for each indicator.

The CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section developed the Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Indicators utilizing the same methods used by the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project (HCI). For technical assistance and questions regarding the Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Indicators, please contact climatechange@cdph.ca.gov.

The CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section's CalBRACE project was partially supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Climate Ready States and Cities Initiative (CRSCI) through Cooperative Agreement 5UE1EH001052. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC or the US Health and Human Services Agency.

Back to CDPH Climate Change and Health Equity Section's CalBRACE page