NYC is working to protect your health — but we can’t do it alone

New Yorkers benefit from one of the largest health departments in the world. And at the NYC Health Department, we have one of the most robust environmental health programs in the country. From investigating foodborne illnesses, to monitoring local air, to creating guidance before deadly storms or extreme heat — and much more — the Health Department’s work supports the health of all New Yorkers.

But we can’t do it alone. We depend on a broad network of public-sector resources from the city, state and federal government to plan for and protect New Yorkers against many public health threats.

Whether it’s national weather forecast data that we need to prepare for extreme events, or the lab tests we use to trace and stop foodborne illness outbreaks, national expertise and standards provide a backbone for policy that local communities and organizations rely on. These local efforts are vital to our work to protect your health. Here are some examples.

Preventing heat-related illness

Preventing heat-related illness is a collaborative effort because climate and weather conditions do not stop at city, state, or national borders.

Hot weather is becoming more intense due to climate change. More than 500 New Yorkers die prematurely due to hot weather each year, most of them because they didn’t have access to an air conditioner (AC) at home.

So how do we help New Yorkers stay cool and prevent avoidable heat illness and death?

We start with data: Every summer, emergency preparedness teams rely on forecasts from the National Weather Service (NWS) to know when to open cooling centers. Public weather data from the NWS informs our work and every reliable forecasting tool, app, or website across the country. In partnership with our emergency preparedness teams and experts at the NWS, we generate health-informed messaging and conduct heat safety trainings so New Yorkers know how to stay cool and spot signs of heat-related illness.

We also connect people who are most vulnerable to heat-related illness to programs like the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) that will help with energy bills and provide air conditioners.

For example, a grandparent on a fixed income who is less able to adapt to heat because of their age and chronic health issues could apply. In order to get the AC delivered to the grandparent, close coordination needs to happen across all levels of government. The federal government must set aside funding to help low-income people with energy and weatherization needs, state administrators must apply for the funding, and local agencies work together to provide and promote these benefits to the New Yorkers who need them most. The more funding for this work, the more families in need we can serve.

We also study temperature trends to understand when hot weather contributes to premature death. All of this data helps inform policy proposals — like setting a maximum indoor temperature in residential buildings — a policy named in PlaNYC, the city’s sustainability plan.

Connecting the dots between hot weather and health risks will protect renters in the summer from apartments too hot for their health, just as they are already protected from the cold in the winter.

Preparing for and recovering from extreme storms

Flooding from powerful storms, like Hurricanes Ida and Sandy, can cause injury and death, as well as disrupt access to food, medical care, and reliable power.

Like with heat events, public weather data helps us prepare, plan, and recover. Emergency preparedness teams use this information to alert New Yorkers who are especially vulnerable to flooding, like those living in basement apartments or low-lying areas of the city.

Public rainfall data — collected by national agencies — show that rainfall intensity has been increasing in NYC over the past 70 years, due to climate change. These trends inform the city’s flood resilience work, like improvements to our drainage systems to better absorb intense rainfall. For homes damaged by storms, there are recovery programs that can help with repairs driven by both local and national support.

National resources like Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) funding also help the city make flood resilience upgrades to avoid damage to homes, businesses, and public spaces. Like with programs to deliver AC assistance, we rely on a network of experts, administrators and staff to secure resources, identify where upgrades are needed most, and deliver support at the local level.

Testing and tracing foodborne illness relies on constant cooperation between local, state, and national levels

Food handling used to be a lot less hygienic: In 1905, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle had graphic descriptions of meatpacking plants riddled with mold and dirt, prompting the creation of food safety regulations. Adherence to these common standards has dramatically increased safe handling practices for food.

The Health Department has been protecting New Yorkers for 220 years, and monitoring the safety of our food has been a fundamental public health practice for most of that history. The Health Department formalized this work in 1884 by creating the Division of Food Inspection and Offensive Trades.

Still, foodborne illness persists. In 2024, food safety investigators responded to a multi-state outbreak of listeriosis, originating from deli meat produced in unsanitary conditions.

So, what do we do about it?

• Monitor: We watch for incoming complaints to 311 about foodborne illness or unsanitary conditions at food service establishments, as well as review disease reports for local, regional, and national trends.

• Inspect: We make regular visits to food establishments to check for sanitary handling, storage, and serving of food.

• Investigate: We interview patients with suspected foodborne illness, and visit associated food establishments to investigate outbreaks quickly to stop them from spreading.

Foodborne illness doesn’t care about geographic boundaries. NYC residents have access to all kinds of food — around 30,000 restaurants and 14,000 grocery stores — with sources from all around the US and the world. When tracing an outbreak back to the source, especially when every hour counts, the success of our effort depends on knowledgeable food safety and disease control experts working at every level of government to support local response.

When our city, state and federal colleagues have access to advanced lab technologies, they can quickly identify pathogens and keep a handful of cases from turning into an outbreak.

Tracking pollution helps make our air cleaner

Natural resources — our air, water, forests — don’t have boundaries, and pollution from other parts of the world travels to NYC (and vice versa). By having common standards for measuring the cleanliness of our air, water and other natural resources, we can make collective improvements across local, city, state, and national lines.

Over the past 15 years, NYC’s air quality has been improving according to both our local monitoring network and the federal regulatory network. Although New York state and City have set new rules limiting emissions from some pollution sources, the majority of the improvement has come from stricter federal rules and standards for emissions from power plants outside the state and vehicles on the roads throughout the country.

Analyses of the federal monitoring network data have established that these national rules and standards have helped reduce negative health outcomes like asthma, related hospital visits, and deaths at the local level.

Federally funded data systems enable rapid response to new poisoning dangers

When the New York City Poison Center received numerous calls from NYC hospitals regarding the intentional ingestion of sodium nitrite, a food preservative in processed meats, analysis of local data from the National Violent Death Reporting System revealed an increase in suicide death with sodium nitrite between 2015 and 2020. In response, the Health Department sent out an advisory to doctors to help them identify symptoms associated with use of sodium nitrite and treatment options, potentially preventing more deaths. The Poison Center has also used these data to advocate for sodium nitrite to become a scheduled substance, making it is more difficult for people to get.

The Health Department also uses national injury data to provide context for rates of other types of injuries, including child, traffic, older adult fall, and firearm injuries.

Public health means we are all connected

Public health relies on the interconnectedness of all New Yorkers. In some ways, health is personal — a product of the choices you make. But in many ways, health is social — a product of things outside your control: where you’re born, the risks you’re exposed to, and resources you have. Like the air you breathe, or the weather, or the safety of the food you eat.

As a global city, NYC is uniquely impacted by all levels of policy. Our influence is far reaching and our residents come from all over the country and the world. The easiest way to keep one of us healthy is to keep all of us healthy. How do we do that? When national knowledge and priorities support a strong network of state and local public resources and programs, we can truly protect and promote the health of all New Yorkers.