CLEAN AIR - HEALTHY HOMES
Community learning for resilient living
Indoor air and community healthEvery day, we are learning more about the importance of access to clean, indoor air during wildfire season. This work is aimed to develop a Wildfire Smoke Ready Missoula. Clean Air - Healthy Homes will strengthen local climate resilience and long-term health equity through engagement, education and empowerment by utilizing community learning.
By hearing from Indigenous residents, folks living in underserved neighborhoods and community groups across Missoula, we hope to assess the community understanding of the health impacts of wildfire smoke, identify existing ways of adapting to smoky conditions, potential barriers to staying healthy, co-create an action plan, and offer education and free portable HEPA air cleaners to reduce indoor air pollution, ensuring residents can thrive even with smoke or other indoor pollutants. Read more below about our community work around wildfire smoke and indoor air quality! |
Summer 2023 a success!
We're wrapping up a fun, successful summer of connecting with the Missoula community about wildfire smoke! Through our EPA environmental justice grant, we worked with individuals and partner organizations to gain a better understanding of our community needs related to wildfire smoke, educate folks about the importance of indoor air quality during smoke season, and distribute dozens of HEPA portable air cleaners to our neighbors most in need. This summer we were lucky to have a light wildfire smoke season, but we know longer, stronger wildfire smoke episodes are on the horizon. Helping the Missoula community prepare for this is ongoing work. This year, we primarily connected with residents in three of Missoula's more vulnerable neighborhoods - Northside/Westside, River Road, and Franklin to the Fort. Some of the highlights of our accomplishments the past few months are:
*Our partner organization, the North Missoula Community Development Corporation (NMCDC), published results from their neighborhood survey, which included questions provided by Climate Smart about wildfire smoke and health. The survey found:
These survey results have helped identify opportunities for Climate Smart Missoula and our partners to:
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Climate Smart's summer intern, Reeve Schroder, with the cache of HEPA portable air cleaners that she refurbished.
We worked with the North/Westside, River Road, and Franklin to the Fort. These neighborhoods were identified by Missoula Invest Health, a collaborative effort to improve health equity in underserved neighborhoods.
Climate Resilience Specialist, Susan Teitelman, and summer intern, Reeve Schroeder, speaking with residents in the River Road neighborhood.
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