Tag - Climate Change

This presentations shares Raluca's work in education then expands out a to reflect on her journey in Planetary Health and how it's been personally transforming to her over the last 7 years in her career as a Canadian born nurse.

Diesel pollution and climate change are urgent public health threats with direct impacts on respiratory, cardiovascular, and overall community health. Nurses are uniquely positioned on the front lines of care to recognize, address, and advocate against these environmental risks. This webinar, hosted on the anniversary of the release of the Clearing the Air Report in Pennsylvania, explore show diesel emissions contribute to poor air quality and health disparities, the growing health impacts of climate change, and why nursing leadership is essential in driving change. Participants will gain practical insights on education, advocacy strategies, and ways to integrate environmental health into clinical practice.

This student-led quality improvement project strengthens emergency preparedness among home care clients who have care provided via waiver program with through personalized education and assessment. Grounded in the Nurses Climate Challenge and aligned with Charter Oak State College’s School of Nursing Commitment, the project equips clients with practical tools to prepare for climate-related and other emergencies. The student created targeted educational materials, tools to evaluate client readiness, and identify opportunities to enhance safety, resilience, and health outcomes in the home setting. Through this initiative, learners advance climate-informed nursing practice while empowering vulnerable populations to better navigate emergencies.

This session explores the development and implementation of a three-part, interactive, case-based learning activity designed to integrate the Political Determinants of Health (PdoH), Planetary Health (PH), and Climate Justice (CJ) through the lens of the exposome model and local context. Developed at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, this initiative served as a scaffold for future coursework and deeper integration of planetary health and climate justice across the curriculum.

Sustainability efforts are a long game. As we teach students about the many environmental challenges we face, we must pair this with capacity-building that will allow sustained action over the long term. Utilizing sensory cues, story-telling, and shared experience, we can support students to develop not only environmental health knowledge, but also community, resilience, and even joy. Megan Czerwinski will present findings from her research on sustainability competence in nursing education, along with insights from work developing an open-access learning platform for sustainability (learngala.com) and the campus culture recommendations for the University of Michigan Commission for Carbon Neutrality.

PFAS are commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’ due to their extreme persistence in the environment and human body. PFAS cross the placental barrier, accumulate in the growing fetus, are excreted in breast milk, and have been linked with a wide range of health effects including high cholesterol, several cancers, infertility, and low birth weight. This webinar discusses the scope of PFAS exposure in Michigan as well as resources for the clinician, including ANHE’s PFAS Toolkit, as well as advocacy opportunities.

This presentation discusses the information provided in ITRC Coordinator Bob Doppelt’s new book Preventing and Healing Climate Traumas: A Guide to Building Resilience and Hope in Communities (Routledge Publishing). It describes the urgent need, methods, and multiple benefits of using a public health approach in communities to build population mental wellness and resilience for the climate emergency. During the presentation, Doppelt also describes how the “Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act of 2023” that has been introduced in Congress would fund and support these community initiatives. 

Climate change is impacting the health of our communities. From increasing temperature, to more extreme weather events, to rişing sea levels, health impacts are being felt globally. Nurses, as the most trusted professionals, are in a unique position to advocate for climate health.

This education and professional practice change webinar is designed to empower nurse practitioners and nurses to integrate environmental health into clinical care by incorporating education, early screening, and prevention strategies that reduce the adverse impacts of environmental exposures on chronic kidney disease (CKD). In this session, participants will explore the significance of environmental exposures in CKD and gain actionable strategies and resources to enhance practice, advance prevention, and improve community health outcomes.