San Juan, Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Credit: Ricardo Arduengo Getty

The United States isn’t ready for the public health problems climate change will bring, experts warned Congress last week.

From the spread of insect-borne disease to the risks to public health centers and outpatient facilities from environmental disasters, public health professionals on Capitol Hill told congressional staffers there is much work to be done to prepare for potential health risks to the American public at the federal, state and local levels.

“Climate change isn’t the singular cause of catastrophe, but it has widened the expanse of social vulnerability to disasters,” said Marccus Hendricks, an assistant professor in the urban studies and planning program at the University of Maryland.

Hendricks outlined how the series of Western wildfires, intense rainfall in Houston, and wind and storm surge events in South Florida and Puerto Rico in 2017 were all devastating illustrations of the “collision of climate-related risk and the human built environment.”

He and the other speakers stressed the need for advance investment in […]