Climate change is affecting early childhood health and development, with urban low-income communities experiencing the greatest impacts. While a wealth of information exists on these impacts, Bay Area decision-makers need locally relevant insights that connect key findings to on-the-ground conditions.
SFEI is partnering with Tipping Point Community, a Bay Area anti-poverty non-profit organization, to conduct a literature review and produce a summary report synthesizing existing research on:
- How climate-driven extreme heat and flooding affect early childhood health and development in urban low-income communities, and
- How urban nature interventions by local governments and early childhood organizations can help mitigate harm and lower energy use.
This report will highlight how climate change impacts, access to and presence of urban nature, and early childhood health and development are interconnected. By providing clear, locally relevant insights, the project aims to support decision-makers in prioritizing resources, identifying effective solutions, and securing funding to implement urban nature projects in low-income communities to mitigate climate impacts and improve early childhood outcomes.
Throughout the project, SFEI will also collaborate closely with our public health expert, Lisa Patel, Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, as well as with a regional workgroup of local community organizations and other regional experts in public health and urban nature, including:
- Anton Benedicto, Literacy for Environmental Justice
- Arleide Santos, Urban Tilth
- Christine Padilla, Build Up San Mateo County
- Corey Zimmerman, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
- Daphne Miller, University of California San Francisco
- Jessica Trowbridge, University of California San Francisco
- Karen Weinbaum, San Francisco Department of Public Health
- Lia Fernald, University of California Berkeley
- Cesar Estein, Second Nature Ecology + Design
- Nicki Bush, University of California San Francisco
- Nooshin Razani, University of California San Francisco
- Rupa Basu, University of California San Francisco
- Viniece Jennings, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
- Violet Saena, Climate Resilient Communities
- Michelle Kondo, United States Forest Service
- Kenna Lee, California Department of Public Health
- Michelle Blakely, First Five San Mateo County
- Kristin Spanos, First Five Alameda County
- Ingrid X. Mezquita, First Five San Francisco County
- Whitney Evans, ParentChild+
- Zoë Chafe, C40 Cities
- Joy Duenas, Izzi
