Climate change is a significant threat to health and health equity. In the Fall 2019 Climate Changes Health and Health Equity Community Read/Journal Club, we will focus on two reports: The 2018 Lancet Countdown Report and The 2016 U.S Global Change Research Program Climate and Health Assessment. The Lancet Countdown was established to provide an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change. It tracks 41 indicators across five domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement. The 2016 U.S Global Change Research Program Climate and Health Assessment focuses on the impacts of climate change on human health in the United States. This scientific assessment examines how climate change is already affecting human health and the changes that may occur in the future with focus on: temperature-related death and illness; air quality impacts; extreme events; vector-borne diseases; water-related illness; food safety, nutrition, and distribution; mental health and well-being, and populations of concern.
Climate change is a significant threat to health and health equity. In the Fall 2019 Climate Changes Health and Health Equity Community Read/Journal Club, we will focus on two reports: The 2018 Lancet Countdown Report and The 2016 U.S Global Change Research Program Climate and Health Assessment. The Lancet Countdown was established to provide an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change. It tracks 41 indicators across five domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement. The 2016 U.S Global Change Research Program Climate and Health Assessment focuses on the impacts of climate change on human health in the United States. This scientific assessment examines how climate change is already affecting human health and the changes that may occur in the future with focus on: temperature-related death and illness; air quality impacts; extreme events; vector-borne diseases; water-related illness; food safety, nutrition, and distribution; mental health and well-being, and populations of concern.
Sessions were recorded. The titles of each of the sessions below are linked to the recordings. PowerPoint presentation slides are linked separately.
Check the LibGuide for additional specific readings or videos for each session
Lectures
September 24, 2019
Air Quality – Jeff Anderson, MD, Cardiovascular Department, Intermountain Medical Center and U of Utah School of Medicine
Air Quality PowerPoint Presentation: CCH_Anderson_092419
Oct 1, 2019
Mental Health and Well-Being, including Eco-Anxiety – LeRoy Anderson, MD, Psychiatrist (retired); Clinical Faculty (retired), School of Medicine, University of Utah; and Medical Director (retired), Outpatient Psychiatry Service, Utah Valley Medical Center Mental Health and Well Being PowerPoint Presentation: CCH_Anderson_100119
Populations of Concern – Royal P. DeLegge, PhD, LEHS, RS, Director, Environmental Health Division – Salt Lake County Health Department (Note: We are aware that the audio on this video is poor, but the content is so valuable, we are posting it despite the flaws.)
Populations of Concern PowerPoint Presentation: CCH_DeLegge_102219
Oct 29, 2019
Public Policy/Solutions – Scott Williams, MD, Executive Director,Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah)
Public Policy/Solutions PowerPoint Presentation: CCH_Williams_102919
The final three sessions of this discussion feature systemic action being taken at the University of Utah, in Utah, in the U.S. and internationally to address how climate changes health and health equity:
Nov 5, 2019
Practice Green Health – Smitha Warrier, MD, Anesthesiology, Assistant Professor (Clinical), School of Medicine, University of Utah
Nov 12, 2019 Students Leading the Way on Climate
We experienced technical difficulties with the recording of this session. So, in lieu of a recording, we offer the following outline and links that were prepared for the session:
Greta Thunberg – Greta Thunberg first became known in August 2018 when, at age 15, she began spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on global warming by holding up a sign saying (in Swedish) “School strike for the climate”. Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together, they organized a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were at least two coordinated multi-city protests involving over one million students each.
Contact Info: Joan M. Gregory, joan.gregory@utah.edu
Utah Climate Advocates, Piper Christian and Mishka Banuri
Piper Christian is a sophomore at University of Utah pursuing a double major in Environmental Studies and Political Science. In 2018, she helped pass a student-led resolution on climate change through the Utah State Legislature. She now serves as the vice president of Utah Climate Advocates, a campus club focusing on climate action and environmental justice. CCL Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo0o5GWBfag&t=467s Contact Info: Piper Christian, laurenpchristian@gmail.com
Mishka Banuri is an 18 year old organizer in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was an organizer and emcee for the Utah People’s Climate March, co-organized the first Utah Youth Environmental Summit, and continues to work with Utah Youth Environmental Solutions. Mishka is also passionate about reproductive justice, particularly centering marginalized voices. She is a peer educator with Teen Council, a program run by Planned Parenthood that provides sexual education to young people. As a Pakistani-American Muslim, Mishka seeks to build bridges and empower Muslim youth and youth of color in Utah. She is the Director of the Ambassador Program for the Emerald Project, which fights the misinterpretation of Islam. Mishka is an extraordinarily passionate and effective youth climate justice activist in Utah.
Sustainability in Medicine Interest Group The mission of the Sustainability Interest Group is two-fold:
1. to improve sustainability efforts on the University of Utah Medical School Campus and
2. to educate and inspire future physicians to reevaluate current medical practice in order to minimize the burden that health care imposes on the environment. By so doing, we aim to improve public health.
Contact Info: Chris Nielson, Nielson.Chris@hsc.utah.edu
Sustainability in Dentistry
The objectives of Sustainability in Dentistry include:
1. Provide information and resources to those interested in the practice and development of sustainable ecofriendly dentistry with the intent to serve the community and its environment
2. Provide opportunities for students to work with school administration and associating groups/club to make the University of Utah School of Dentistry eco-friendlier and environmentally sustainable for future endeavors.
3. Provide mentorship for students looking to maintain sustainable lifestyles, personally and as a healthcare provider.
4. Host presentations with leaders in the field of sustainable-green dentistry that can provide insight into a developing movement in medicine/health care.
5. Continue to make improvements toward making the University of Utah School of Dentistry gain LEED Certification
Contact Info: Alexander Jones, alexanderpeterjones@gmail.com, and Morgan Karnath, morgan.karnath@hsc.utah.edu
Future Clinicians for Clean Air is an advocacy group concerned with the health impacts of poor air quality. As future health professionals, we use current evidence and research to advocate for clean air policies.
Contact Info: fcca.saltlake@gmail.com or Liza Kasavana, liza.kasavana@hsc.utah.edu
Nov 19, 2019
Climate Changes Health and Health Equity – Rising to the Challenge – Robin Burr, BA, MA, Chief Facilities Officer, University of Utah, and Christopher F. Benson, PE, CEM, LEEP AP, Program Manager, Sustainability & Energy, Department of Facilities Management, University of Utah
Health and Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Inland Port– Deeda Seed, Senior Utah Field Campaigner, Center for Biological Diversity, and Jonny Vasic, Executive Director, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. Moderator: Olivia Joy Kavapalu, Utah Climate Advocates.
Anna Brandes, MS3 UUSOM, She/Her, Lead, Planetary Health Report Card Initiative, Sustainability Club, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, University of Utah.
Alexis Pearl Lee, MBA, She/Her, Environmental and Social Sustainability Director, Green Team Co-Chair, University of Utah Health
Smitha Warrier, MD FASA, She/Her, Medical Director of Environmental and Social Sustainability, Green Team Co-Chair, Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, and Medical Director, Anesthesiology- ACC/Area E, University of Utah Health
Program:
Medical students and UHealth staff and faculty continued their sustainability efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic by deep diving into assessment. This session of the Climate Changes Health and Health Equity Community Read will focus on the results of their efforts – The Planetary Health Report Card (SOM) and The Practice Greenhealth 2021 Benchmark Report Card (UHealth). Join us in learning the goals and results of these green health assessments and the plans that are developing for moving forward based on this new information.
Why Saving the Earth is Good for Your Mental Health
Presenter: Nataunya Kay, MA ATR, She/Her, Huntsman Mental Health Institute, University of Utah Health
Nataunya Kay works at Huntsman Mental Health Institute (HMHI), formerly University Neuropsychiatric Institute as an Expressive Arts Psychiatric Program Specialist. She received a Master’s in Art Therapy from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a BFA in printmaking from Utah State University. After completing a Master Recycler program run through Salt Lake City’s Waste and Recycling Division, she created a Green Team committee at HMHI focused on improving sustainability practices within the hospital and has chaired that committee since its inception in 2019. Educating others about the preservation of natural resources runs in her family. Her grandfather, Lee Kay, was named Utah’s Mr. Conservationist for his work promoting conservation efforts in Utah in the ‘40’s, ‘50’s and early 60’s. Her father, Richard Kay, dedicated his career to educating Idaho science teachers and cherished educational wilderness workshops. Nataunya’s love of nature and its preservation runs deep. She spent part of the summer of 1996 visiting off-the-grid houses throughout the western states including Earthships in New Mexico and a yurt near the top of Pike’s Peak. Her dream home would be an Earthship.
Program:
The presentation “Why Saving the Earth is Good for your Mental Health” will look at where we are in facing climate change as well as the psychological issues that prevent many people from engaging in this issue. It will then explore what actions are helpful as well as engage the audience in finding their own “low hanging fruit” or actions that can be easily attained for them. It will also explore what others are doing, share some resources and hopefully leave some time for questions.
How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos by David Pogue
Saving Us: A Climate Scientists Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams
My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization by Chellis Glendenning
The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kassar
September 22, 2022
Environmental Justice and Unsheltered Homelessness
Presenter: Dr. Jeff Rose is an assistant professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism at the University of Utah. His research uses qualitative and spatial methods to examine systemic inequities expressed through class, race, political economy, and relationships to nature.
Description: Critical social theorists have long argued that there can be no justice if there is not a space in which that justice can be attained. For people facing unsheltered homelessness, access to private space is limited, meaning that much of their existence takes place in the public domain, often in spaces that span the urban-wildlife spectrum. Everyday processes of living, eating, sleeping, and socializing become contested processes of sociospatial access to various city spaces, including many unbuilt environments like parks. What are the social, ecological, political, and managerial ramifications of these relationships? This presentation will leverage perspectives from political ecology and environmental justice to explore social science research that informs critical perspectives of unsheltered homelessness.
Title: Air Quality and Environmental Justice in Salt Lake County: lessons learned from researching local pollution through NASA and the University of Utah
Presenter: Piper Christian
Program:
Climate Changes Health and Health Equity Lecture: Air Quality and Environmental Justice in Salt Lake County: lessons learned from researching local pollution through NASA and the University of Utah with Piper Christian. The virtual lecture will be held over Zoom on June 23rd at 11am. Piper will be discussing her research on the shrinking Great Salt Lake, dust vulnerability and potential impacts to the surrounding Salt Lake region. She will also share her research on indoor air quality in the west side of Salt Lake City.
Piper Christian (she/her) graduated from the University of Utah in 2022, earning a BS in Environmental and Sustainability Studies with an emphasis in Air, Water, and Health. In 2022, Piper served as the Project Lead for a team of NASA researchers, where she studied how dust from the drying Great Salt Lake would exacerbate existing pollution inequities within Utah. Her research in college focused on how key stakeholders can better support Utah families with asthmatic children who are impacted by air pollution. From 2022-2023, she worked for the SPARC Environmental Justice Lab at the University of Utah, where she served as the liaison between students and community partners for Environmental Justice research relating to air quality. Through these partnerships, she helped provide fifty low-cost air purifiers to community members, helped oversee an air filter exchange program, and conducted air quality lessons at local schools.
Presenters:
UHealth Green Team & Sustainability in Medicine Interest Group
Alexis Pearle Lee, MBA, Environmental and Social Sustainability Director, and Green Team Co-Chair at University of Utah Health
Smitha Warrier, MD, FASA, Chief Surgical Operations Officer, Medical Director of Environmental and Social Sustainability, Green Team Co-Chair, and Associate Professor with the Department of Anesthesiology at University of Utah Health
From the Sustainability in Medicine Interest Group (which is comprised of medical students at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine): Ellenor Chi (MS4), Keely Kringlen (MS4), Michelle Culbertson (MS3), Kenzie Keeney (MS3), Alexa Gathman Ries (MS3), Taryn Hunt-Smith (MS2), and Noah Shephard (MS2)
Program:
Join us to hear from two sustainability-oriented teams at U of U Health as they share their perspectives on sustainability efforts on the health sciences campus, using the Practice Green Health and Planetary Health Report Card assessments. Presenters are comprised of U of U Health staff, faculty, and students, who will discuss our hospital & clinic operations and our medical school curriculum. These groups last shared with us in December 2021, so this event will be an opportunity to hear about all that’s happened since then.
The seed library kick-off event featured, Rikki Longino, Salt Lake City Public Library Garden Coordinator where they gave a Thanksgiving Address to give thanks to seeds, the seed library, and the many ways our land contributes to seed growing. They spoke on the importance of seed saving for a sustainable future and had several seeds available to touch and bring home – many of which can be found in the seed library. The group also took part in an activity to recall seed stories. The talk was recorded as part of the Climate Changes Health and Health Equity series and is available for viewing.
