Obama: Climate change impact on health is personal

President Obama says he and other parents have a personal stake in how climate change threatens public health, saying he once had to rush his daughter to the hospital with an asthma attack.

"Well, you know, Malia had asthma when she was 4 and because we had good health insurance, we were able to knock it out early," Obama told ABC News. "And if we can make sure that our responses to the environment are reducing those incidents, that's something that I think every parent would wish for."

Obama's comments came during a string of interviews he did after a Tuesday event at Howard University, discussing a project to examine the effects of climate change on public health.

"Keep in mind that climate change is just one more example of how the environment will cause health problems, and I think most people understand that," Obama told ABC News.

The president noted that when he attended college in the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s, he could feel the smog and pollution in his lungs.

"We took steps to deal with it, and today, it's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better," the president told ABC. "And the same thing is true with climate change."