As a follow up to the Annual Meeting in Boston, I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from the meeting and the activities that have been evolving since then. Section members were quite busy during the meeting, debating environmental health issues throughout every hallway and corner of the Convention Center and our scientific and business sessions. Two of the most pressing issues that emerged from the Convention included climate change and healthy food systems. Section members conveyed a sense of urgency for the Section to collaborate closely with APHA and other leading organizations both domestically and abroad and at various levels of government to address these time-sensitive public health issues. As a step in that direction, the Section created two subcommittees to develop work plans on these issues over the course of the year, including strategies to update the current policy resolution on climate change that was last updated in 1995 and to develop a position paper on healthy food systems to be submitted to APHA in March 2007.
Dr. Paul Epstein was awarded the Homer Calver Award, the Section’s most prestigious award that honors public health professionals in the field of environmental health that have demonstrated leadership in public environmental health. Dr. Epstein, who is the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, talked with the Section and others attending the luncheon on the causes and consequences of climate change and laid out a blueprint for how public environmental health professionals can move to action by weighing in on national strategies to reduce carbon emissions and inserting ourselves into the policy debate to promote sustainable development. To learn more about Dr. Epstein’s work, please visit his Web site at http://chge.med.harvard.edu/index.html.
At the meeting, the Environment Section celebrated its 95th anniversary as an APHA section of the American Public Health Association. It was an exciting milestone for all. The Section was thrilled to be honored by the Association at its annual award ceremony and was moved to think towards the future and specifically the Section’s 100th Anniversary. The Section agreed to begin planning for this auspicious milestone and established the 2011 Committee to celebrate 100 years of environmental public health and develop a scientific and social agenda for the 2011 Annual Meeting that highlights the accomplishments of environment public health over the past century and the future challenges that we will face both at home and abroad. Please contact Leyla McCurdy if you are interesting in working on this committee. Leyla can be reached by e-mail at mccurdy@neetf.org.
On the horizon is the upcoming Mid-Year Section Meeting to be held in Washington D.C. on March 20, 2007 from 11-5 p.m. For those of you outside the DC area, we will provide access via teleconference for a portion of the meeting. At that meeting, we will have the opportunity to connect with key APHA staff on policy and advocacy, section fundraising, student involvement, membership and other Section committee issues. Meeting logistics and an agenda will be forthcoming.
Finally, I want to acknowledge our contributors who have helped support the Section over the years and specifically through grants and donations. Such support has helped strengthen our programs and events at the Annual Meeting and throughout the year! Specifically, I want to thank the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and specifically the National Center for Environmental Health; the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, the Food Service and Packaging Institute, Inc., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and most recently the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Texas, through contributions in support of our student scholarship fund.
As always, if you are interested in joining one of the Environment Section’s active committees or have any questions or concerns, please contact any Section officer for more information or contact me by email.
Best Wishes for 2007,
Jill Litt, chair, Environment Section, assistant professor at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center jill.litt@uchsc.edu