Climate Change and Its Impact on our Collective Health
Recorded Oct 10, 2024.
The League of Women Voters of the Bay Area (LWVBA) provides a continuing series on Public Health Awareness. The League sees multiple arenas impacting public health: housing, education, race and gender, and climate – among others. This program will focus on the climate impacts.
This summer's intense heat waves, wildfires and floods have spotlighted the impact of climate change as a major public health threat. The American Lung Association has found that 131 million people live in areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution - that is 1 in 4 Americans. The figure increased by nearly 12 million since the survey a year ago, disproportionately impacting under-resourced and vulnerable communities. Our experts will discuss climate change and its relationship to health challenges such as chronic conditions of respiratory and heart disease, preterm labor, changes in vector ecology, water and air quality impacts, and climate anxiety. They will also discuss climate policy focused on health and equity, and steps to raise awareness and engagement in our communities.
Our Speakers:
• Diz Swift, Director of Natural Resources for the League of Women Voters of California
• Kelly Lê, executive director of the UC–CSU Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Projects (ECCLPs)
• Lisa Patel, Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine.
