Title: The APHA Action Board
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
The American Public Health Association has an Action Board. The Action Board is comprised of representatives from each APHA section, several of the state affiliate associations (the state associations of public health), and three at large representatives. Action Board representatives are not elected, but rather they are appointed by their section and serve a three-year term. The Action Board serves the role of facilitating action by APHA members on policy issues. It helps to activate the Sections, Caucuses, Special Interest Groups (SPIGS), Affiliates, and the general membership. I am the Occupational Health and Safety Section’s Action Board representative.
This year the Action Board will continue with its efforts to support and facilitate the APHA policy development and review process. This includes the process of archiving existing policies that lack relevance other than for historic purposes. Guidelines for the policy process can be found at <http://www.apha.org/private/ppolicy.htm>. The OHS Section is one section that has taken a lead in working with APHA staff to move this process forward. Mary Miller has been coordinating our effort to review APHA’s occupational health and safety policies. Anyone interested in working on this ongoing effort is encouraged to go to the APHA policy Web site and review the policies and consider which could be revised or updated to either better address or include workers’ health and safety issues. You can contact Mary Miller by e-mail at: <marymiller@inwa.net>.
When you look at the APHA policy Web site, you will see a calendar of important dates and deadlines for each step of the policy development and review process. Two key dates to keep in mind this year are: Jan. 12, when suggestions for subject areas in need of review are due and Feb. 13, when proposed new policies are due.
In order to access the site, you will need your username and password for the "Members Only" section of the APHA Web site to view this information. If you have any questions about the information on the site, you can e-mail APHA staff at <policy@apha.org>.
The Action Board has formed three working groups based upon the priority action areas established by the APHA Governing Council and Executive Board: Access to Care, Public Health Infrastructure, and Health Disparities. The working groups are given general assignments based upon the Association’s efforts in each of these areas. Last year, each working group reviewed a set of selected policy statements related to its action area. Each then made recommendations for keeping, updating, or archiving the policies. This year’s role will continue to include support for the archiving process but also for taking political action related to the action areas.
This year, the APHA will actively promote National Public Health Week, April 4 – 11, 2004. The focus for this week of activities will be Eliminating Health Disparities. Look at APHA’s Web site, <http://www.apha.org/nphw/>, to learn about the ways that APHA is considering action related to that goal.
For National Public Health Week (NPHW) 2004, APHA will be collecting and highlighting a wide variety of innovative projects/interventions that have been implemented in communities to tackle health disparities. The Association’s goal is to inspire other people who work on public health issues and want to reduce health disparities in their communities. OHS Section members who want to take part in this effort can begin now to consider presenting occupational health and safety/workers’ health projects and interventions that have been successful in helping to reduce and/or eliminate occupational illness and injury disparities. By moving APHA to present one or two of such efforts, we could help to demonstrate that these disparities exist, that there are ways to successfully address them, and that occupational health and safety is an important aspect of public health. This would even have the potential of helping us to recruit people to our work and membership in our section. Although APHA states that it would like to highlight efforts to secure Environmental Justice, it does not list Work Environment Justice. This is a perspective that our section could promote.
Finally, OHS Section members are encouraged to regularly look at the APHA Legislation, Advocacy, and Policy Web site at: <http://www.apha.org/legislative/> . This site provides news, links to updates of APHA actions and the APHA Legislative Action Center. At the latter, you can find Action Alerts – calls for specific actions on the part of APHA members. This page also provides information about your local Congressional delegation legislative and electoral issues, and a media guide providing you contact information for media organizations, by zip code. APHA has established these links to better support successful political action by the membership.