Curbing greenhouse gas emissions is key when it comes to reducing the severity of climate change. Many climate change mitigation strategies have the added potential to improve public health across communities, which can serve as a powerful motivator for implementing climate action and policies. Research into the co-benefits of climate change mitigation strategies provides an effective framework to address the urgent need for solutions-oriented climate change health research. Join Dr. Garcia as she examines the case study of vehicle electrification, which is an important strategy for climate change mitigation and is also projected to have considerable co-benefits for public health through reductions in tailpipe emissions.

The potential impacts of the transition to electric vehicles (EV) on air quality and health have been studied under various hypothetical scenarios—but what do real-world data show? What about the concern that EV adoption is not equitably distributed across populations? If co-benefits are not equitably distributed, historical inequities will be reinforced. Dr. Garcia will present early results from the “EV Adoption in California” (EVAC) Study which investigates the potential disparate impacts of environmental health co-benefits of EV adoption.

Please join us for this special hybrid meeting, hosted by the EaRTH Center and co-sponsored by our friends at the Division of Occupational, Environmental, and Climate Medicine (OECM) and the UC Center for Climate, Health & Equity.

About Erika Garcia, PhD, MPH:

Dr. Erika Garcia is an Assistant Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Her research examines the role of ambient environmental exposures in the development of human disease with the goal of providing evidence for potential public health policies and interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality. She focuses on the effects of early-life air pollution exposure on respiratory health outcomes as well as the impacts of climate change related environmental exposures on morbidity and mortality. She leads the NIH-funded “Electric Vehicle Adoption in California” (EVAC) Study which examines inequities in electric vehicle adoption and in the observed local air quality and respiratory health co-benefits of electric vehicle adoption, using a mixed method design that melds community-engaged research with traditional epidemiological data analyses. Dr. Garcia received a PhD and MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from UC Berkeley.