# Watch: Data to Action – What Communities Know, How Cities Lead 

*Published:* 2026-10-09
*Author:* Cecile Brown

**What’s new:** So far, 2026 has brought an onslaught of extreme weather, including heat waves, flooding, and wildfires. These climate-driven events have magnified health risks, especially extreme heat, rising hazardous air pollution, power outages and disease exposures.

This climate-health crisis places an unequal burden on fenceline, low income and Black and brown communities. For example, threatening their physical, mental and financial health in new, compounding ways. Protecting communities from these growing risks will mean listening closely to what they need and building solutions with them. Frontline Resource Institute at Environmental Defense Fund hosted a dialogue at the Climate Justice Hub that brought together city and community leaders from across the country. Leaders uplifted strategies that let the needs of the most-affected people drive the agenda from program design to implementation.

**Who we heard from:** EDF’s Sarah Vogel,Senior Vice President for Healthy Communities, moderated a dialogue with three community health champions each working on specific environmental justice issues in different regions of the United States. They include:

- **Ali Abazeed**, Chief Public Health Officer, City of Detroit, MI
- **Brandi Jenkins**, Deputy Executive Director, Beyond Petrochemicals (U.S.-wide with focus on the Gulf Coast region)
- **Valentina Rojas**, Environmental Health Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice (New York, NY)

**Why it matters:** Each of these speakers shared ways that their organization has worked to thoughtfully engage communities to learn their priorities in detail — then build policy agendas and practical solutions that deliver them. Whether implementing a “health in all policies” strategy in Detroit, taking on some of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies in the Gulf, Appalachia and Ohio River Valley, or helping New Yorkers stay cool without going broke, each example shares a core focus on prioritizing the needs of those most affected.

**Learn more:** [Check out all EDF’s New York Climate Week Climate Justice Hub videos here](https://www.edf.org/climate-week-nyc)