For the third year in a row, the San Diego Heat and Human Health Summit (H3SD) brought together healthcare practitioners, scientists, legislators, and concerned community members for a convening to discuss how extreme heat is affecting human health in San Diego in the face of climate change and what we need to do to address it. Hosted by UC San Diego School of Medicine, Kaiser Permanente, and San Diego Foundation, over the past three years this free summit has grown into a fantastic and impactful annual tradition, and one that we at the Heat Hub always look forward to attending.

The summit, held at UC San Diego School of Medicine on August 16th, featured a diverse range of presentations about the issue of heat and health, beginning with an opening plenary from County of San Diego Health and Human Services public health officers. At the plenary, county officials outlined the health risks of heat in our region and outlined some ways that the county is already taking action, including heat alerts and Cool Zones.

A-bel outlines the work of the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative.

After the County set the stage for the day, we entered our breakout sessions – with talks on a huge range of topics, all related to heat. Some of the talks focused on particular heat-vulnerable groups, such as farmworkers or young athletes; others focused on specific heat-health outcomes, like kidney disease; and others still explored intersecting topics such as the Tijuana sewage crisis or the importance of having “climate hope.” A full summary of the day’s programming is available on the San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air website here.

As has been the case each year of H3SD so far, a contingent of Heat Hub members attended and shared some of the work that’s been coming out of our group. This year, Hub manager Maren Hale and Hub co-PI/”Education to Broaden Participation” theme leader Nan Renner joined A-bel Gong during their afternoon session focused on the work of the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative (SDRCC). A-bel shared a fantastic overview of the work that SDRCC does to connect climate-focused organizations in the San Diego region and how their team has been able to generate meaningful change and push for climate resiliency through collaboration. Next, Maren highlighted the work of the Heat Hub, emphasizing how working collaboratively with SDRCC has been so instrumental for our work in terms of community engagement. Maren shared an overview of the Heat Hub in its entirety, but because this was a conference focused on heat and heath, she also highlighted several papers that have come out of the “Public health, epidemiology, and environmental justice” Theme Area of the hub, led by Hub co-PI Tarik Benmarhnia. Finally, Nan delved into some of the excellent work that the “Education to Broaden Participation” team is doing, including producing curriculum resources such as Cooler Communities, and the broader philosophy behind her team’s approach to curriculum design and learning, which involves enhancing science education with real-world, relevant phenomena and Earth systems thinking.

Maren shares some of the heat-health work coming out of the Heat Hub

Also during the day, two members of Tarik’s Climate Change Epidemiology Lab had their own sessions focused on heat and health research. Rosana Aguilera, a researcher in Tarik’s lab, gave a popular talk titled “Wildfire Smoke and Public Health in a Changing Climate” where she highlighted her research on the health impacts of wildfire smoke and how these can interact with and amplify the health impacts of heat. Jen Bailey, a PhD student from Tarik’s lab, shared her own research on interactions between extreme heat and transportation, including studies on heat and traffic accidents as well as how people change their modes of travel in response to extreme heat.

Another major highlight of the summit was the poster session, which featured around 20 research posters on topics in heat and health, or related topics in public health and climate change, from graduate and undergraduate students and early career scientists. This was a great opportunity for attendees and presenters alike to learn about the wide range of public health research happening here in San Diego and to make connections.

Nan highlights the goals of the Heat Hub’s Education to Broaden Participation theme area.

To cap it all off, the day ended with closing remarks from two of the organizers of H3SD, Luis Castellanos and Vi Nguyen, who left the crowd energized to continue this important work. Our Heat Hub members had a blast at H3SD learning from and meeting other experts in the fields of extreme heat, human health, and climate change – and we’re already looking forward to next year’s convening!

Check out our posts about the first and second San Diego Heat and Human Health Summits here and here.

Header image source: San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air