In August 2022, the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) and the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Change and Sustainability (LARC) were awarded a UCLA Transdisciplinary Research Acceleration Grant (TRAG) for a project focused on utilizing community engagement as a strategy again thermal inequity in LA. Urban extreme heat events are a growing threat, encompassing a range of social and ecological issues and necessitating a collaborative approach across different areas of knowledge. There is a need for public communication and outreach strategies that are co-created with community members and community leaders to build awareness, resilience, and center equity more effectively. We seek to explore what lessons can be learned from a co-creative process to integrate the voices of residents in the development of a heat resilience communication campaign, including both content itself and strategies for outreach. To do this, we are assembling a Community Advisory Group made of community-based organizations and non-profits that will guide the collaborative work across all project phases, including facilitating a series of focus groups that will inform content development and outreach strategies. The outputs of this community-engaged process include the launch of new heat resilience communications materials in the summer of 2023 as well as additional networking and relationship building of community-based organizations, residents, and non-profits working to secure a more resilient LA to increasing extreme heat conditions.
