ATS Responds to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on Climate Change

The ATS responded to a Request for Information from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on how the agency can best use its resources to help build the healthcare system’s resilience to climate threats, reduce the healthcare industry’s contribution to climate change while increasing sustainability, and address environmental justice in healthcare. The AHRQ recognizes how the impacts of climate change on physical and behavioral health have exacerbated demands on healthcare systems that are struggling to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In keeping with the agency’s mission "to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable," the ATS identified several pressing healthcare-related areas of climate change and environmental justice research and actions that AHRQ could address. The ATS recommends that AHRQ should recognize and provide evidence for interventions to address disparities in health outcomes due to climate change, the healthcare response (both individual and infrastructure) to extreme weather events, and the contribution of healthcare practices to climate change.