PROJECT ABSTRACT Component: OverallArid lands are home to one in three people totaling a population of more than 2 billion spanning the globe. Aridland communities are facing multiple climate change-exacerbated threats impacting health including extremeheat events wildfires dust storms biodiversity loss emerging pathogens poor air quality and drought. TheSouthwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH) brings togethertransdisciplinary research groups to conduct team-science projects addressing the health needs of arid landscommunities adapting to climate change. The Center's overarching mission is to improve health equity acrossthe lifespan by enhancing community partnerships and supporting adaptation efforts by Indigenous Latinxlow-resource urban and rural communities in the Southwestern United States and globally. Based at theUniversity of Arizona (UArizona) home of internationally recognized climate science and adaptationresearchers and Centers SCORCH will serve as a foundation for expanding UArizona campus initiativesaiming to increase health research at the intersection of climate change science. The three-year planningphase will be used to identify researchers whose expertise align with climate change and health acrossUArizona and the region build transdisciplinary teams identify priority research areas for communityadaptation planning and implement two research projects to develop our initial Research Focus Group (RFG)themes. Our initial three RFGs build on the expertise of the current SCORCH team members and arepurposefully broad to encompass evolving research priorities. These three themes include: 1) Health impactsof extreme weather events; 2) Forecasting and early warning of climate change health outcomes; and 3)Adaptive responses in the built environment. Research Project 1 aligns with RFG 2 and 3 to develop anassessment tool that can predict potential health outcomes of greenspace designs. Research Project 2 alignswith RFG 1 to examine the role of maternal exposure to extreme heat and long-term child health outcomes.Through community engaged activities founded on respect and trust led by the Community Engagement Coreand novel data visualization services led by the Integrated Data Visualization Core we will deepen existingand develop new partnerships with academic and community entities with diverse lived experiences andknowledge frameworks. The geographic location of SCORCH in the Southwestern United States providesunique research opportunities to support adaptation and resilience efforts of Indigenous Latinx low-resourceurban and rural communities in the region as well as addressing the unique circumstances found in borderlandareas. The potential international reach of SCORCH enables high-impact climate change and health initiativesthat will translate globally.