As North Carolina readies for another extremely hot summer, Gov. Josh Stein’s office warns that federal cuts could affect the state’s heat-related programs.
The National Weather Service projects a 40 to 50% chance that the state will experience above-normal temperatures for June, July and August, based on its seasonal temperature outlook issued earlier this month.
“North Carolina is preparing for another summer of record heat. While you are outside this summer, please take the necessary steps to prevent heat exhaustion and illness,” Gov. Josh Stein said Tuesday in a release announcing May 25-31 as North Carolina Heat Awareness Week.
Stein’s office said Tuesday that federal budget and staffing cuts at agencies like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency threaten programs that support heat safety.
“Our environmental health and epidemiology teams conduct critical work every day to inform North Carolinians of potential health effects of extreme heat, as well as ensure resources are available for those who experience heat-related illness,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dev Sangvai said in a release. “Cuts to these services would be detrimental to the health and well-being of the more than 11 million people who call North Carolina home.”
In an email responding to questions, a DHHS representative said Tuesday that the federal cuts “have put environmental health services that support clean drinking water, childhood lead poisoning prevention, food safety, and monitoring of environmental health and climate data at risk at the state and local levels.”
One of the programs at risk is the state’s Climate and Health Program, which “is part of a national public health effort to anticipate and prepare for human health effects related to global and local climate change.”
North Carolina’s Climate and Health program supports a handful of tools, including the state heat health alert system, which sends notifications and alerts when the weather is forecasted to reach unhealthy levels.
“Last year, more than 1,200 alerts were sent to inform local communities, share our Communications Toolkit, and keep people in North Carolina safe,” a representative told Coastal Review.
The state’s surveillance system that tracks emergency department visits for heat-related illnesses is also in jeopardy.
Weekly statewide reports are published online “to provide timely and actionable public health information for decision-makers at the state and local levels,” according to the department.
During the summer of 2024, there were 4,688 heat-related illness emergency department visits, nearly a 20% increase from 2023, Stein’s office said.
Also at risk is a new farmworker health training program, in collaboration with the Health and Human Services’ Office of Rural Health, which will help providers identify and treat heat-related illnesses and other farmworker health hazards.
The CDC, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has funded the state’s Climate and Health Program since 2010, and received in late 2024 funding through 2026, according to the state health agency.
The national climate and health program “supports state, tribal, local, and territorial public health agencies as they prepare for climate change’s health impacts.” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans March 27 to restructure the entire agency, and the CDC wasn’t immune.
According to dozens of reports in late March and early April, the Atlanta-based CDC lost around 2,400 employees as part of the restructuring.
These cuts wiped out the center’s Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice within the National Center for Environmental Health, which manages programs on climate and health, asthma, and lead poisoning prevention.
“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said at the time.
In February, the state Health and Human Services was notified of cuts to National Institutes for Health that impact the Office of Rural Health.
Reports came out in late March that the entire state Health and Human Services would eliminate dozens of positions and lose tens of millions in funding, mostly associated with disease and behavioral health.
“The federal grant funding impacts a number of areas of work including immunization efforts, funding for the new NC Immunization Registry, infectious disease monitoring and response, behavioral health, substance use disorder services, and more. Some of the impacted funding supports work that is completed by local health departments, universities, hospitals and local departments of social services,” a state DHHS representative told Coastal Review on Wednesday.
Kennedy has gone before House and Senate committees in the last few weeks to defend the agency’s draft budget, and was grilled about the previous and expected cuts and gutting of health programs.
Heat health, ‘Climate warming trends’
“Several communities across North Carolina experienced their hottest days ever recorded in 2024, and 2025 is likely to continue this trend,” according to the governor’s office, and extreme heat is responsible for the highest number of deaths each year among weather-related hazards.
Heat-related illnesses can affect anyone regardless of age or physical condition.
Outdoor workers, infants and children, older adults, pregnant people, athletes, low-income individuals and people with underlying health conditions are at a disproportionate risk of experiencing adverse health effects.
Recognizing the symptoms of heat illness — include heavy sweating, paleness, muscle cramps, racing or weak pulse, dizziness, headache, fainting, and nausea or vomiting — can help prevent serious complications, including death. Some signs and symptoms.
Stein’s office said that declaring this week as North Carolina Heat Awareness Week is to “bring awareness to ongoing climate warming trends.”
The United States is expected to warm faster than other parts of the world, the EPA explained on its website. “Across the contiguous United States, average temperatures have already risen about 60% more than the global average since 1970. This is expected to continue as global temperatures rise due to climate change,” the agency continued. “As average temperatures rise due to climate change, the risk of extreme temperatures, heat waves, and record-breaking temperatures increases.”
The World Meteorological Organization in a report released Wednesday forecast that there’s an 80% chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed 2024 as the warmest on record.
“The WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update (2025–2029) projects that global temperatures are expected to continue at or near record levels in the next five years, increasing climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development,” according to the organization.
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