On April 24, 2015, the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) at Milken Institute School of Public Health hosted a symposium on Climate Change and Human Health featuring authors of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) draft report, “Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.” This report aims to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based, and where possible, quantitative estimation of observed and projected climate change-related health impacts in the United States. A video of the event, which featured the observations of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is available on the department's YouTube channel.
USGCRP Health Lead and Master of Public Health (MPH) Student Mark Shimamoto played a key role in planning, organizing, and facilitating the event, which drew more than 100 in-person and online attendees from all around the world.
In her welcome to the event, Dean Lynn Goldman pointed out that the impacts of climate change include more smog, longer allergy seasons, and more Americans suffering from asthma and other health conditions. “This can mean an uptick in hospital visits, lost days at work, and many other impacts on children and their families, as well as workers,” she observed. In the past three decades,” she said, “the percentage of Americans with asthma more than doubled, and those affect the most are often among the most vulnerable of us, including children, the elderly, and people living in lower-income communities.”
This is but one of many impacts of climate change on health, including changes in diseases linked to mosquitos, ticks, fleas and other disease vectors, Dean Goldman said. She stressed that both the George Washington University and Milken Institute School of Public Health are committed “to do our part in the fight against climate change.”
In her opening remarks, Professor Perry stated her belief that “global climate change is the single most important occupational and environmental health threat that we face.” She also pointed out that every MPH student who graduates from Milken Institute School of Public Health takes a class offered through the EOH department, Environmental and Occupational Health in a Sustainable World, which includes a focus on climate change health effects.
Both Perry and Goldman recently attended a White House Roundtable on Climate Change where they pledged to prepare the next generation of public health and medical leaders with the skills, tools, and knowledge that they need to reduce the threats posed by climate change.
The federal authors who spoke at the event and the topics they covered included:
• John Balbus, National Institutes of Health (Climate-Health Risk Factors & Populations of Concern)
• Allison Crimmins, Environmental Protection Agency (Introduction to the Assessment)
• Marcus Sarofim, Environmental Protection Agency (Temperature Related Death & Illness)
• Neal Fann, Environmental Protection Agency (Air Quality Impacts)
• Jesse Bell, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Extreme Weather)
• Ben Beard, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Vectorborne Diseases)
• Juli Trtanj, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Water-related Illness)
• Lewis Ziska, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Food Safety, Nutrition, & Distribution)
• Daniel Dodgen, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Mental Health & Well-Being)
The event helped raise awareness of the draft report’s public comment period (April 7-June 8, 2015) and provided a forum for rich discussions between the authors and participants, Shimamoto says.