Collaboration and Action

A new effort is helping raise awareness of an often-overlooked contributor to heat-related illness – medications. Jade Norden, UA University Marketing and Communications, interviews SCORCH Multiple Principal Investigator Dr. Mona Arora to learn about this effort and the volunteer Heat and Medications Task Force behind it.

On March 11,  2026, an Arizona Convening on Sustainability Education was co-hosted by RCE Greater Phoenix*, ASU's Global Futures Education Alliance, the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (SWEHSC), and SCORCH at the UA Tucson campus Health Sciences Innovation Building. A diverse group of educators, researchers, community leaders, and public agencies came together from across Arizona with the shared purpose to strengthen the collaborative process for advancing sustainability, health, and education in our communities.

The SCORCH team once again joined partners from the Pima County Health Department and City of Tucson at a city-wide event, this time at the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books’ Science City “Science of You” neighborhood on March 14-15, 2026.

The Southern Arizona Heat Summit (February 7, 2026) convened its third annual regional workshop focusing on practical solutions to extreme heat in southern Arizona communities. SCORCH joined the City of Tucson/Tucson Resilient Together, Pima County Health Department (PCHD), Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, National Weather Service – Tuson Office, and other community organizations, members, leaders, and experts for a daylong summit to focus on extreme heat in southern Arizona communities and explore health risk and mitigation strategies.