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Creating Healthy Communities

An Update from the PSNA Environmental Health Committee

Are you looking for an opportunity to increase your knowledge on environmental health? See below for an excellent one-day summit in Pittsburgh. You’ll get new ideas on community programming and network with colleagues from across the state. In addition, you’ll learn how to create your own action plan for a healthier community.

Plus, we’re interested in sharing your organization’s events on environmental health. Please feel free to share — regional workshops, webinars and conferences — with our committee through Peggy Slota, chair, [email protected].

The non-profit organization, Women for a Healthy Environment, is presenting an environmental health conference on October 6, 2016 at the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. The “Creating Healthy Communities Conference” is a one-day summit addressing how our environment impacts public health. Dynamic, nationally-recognized speakers will discuss the scientific, medical, political and community-based approaches to creating healthier communities across the country. Local experts will highlight multiple health topics as they relate to our homes, schools and communities. The conference will educate and encourage attendees to become champions in having a positive impact on public health.

Meet our keynote speakers:

  • Robert Atkins serves the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as director of New Jersey Health Initiatives. Bob worked as a school nurse at East Camden Middle School and co-founded the Camden STARR Program, a non-profit youth development program dedicated to improving the life chances of youth living in Camden. Bob earned a PhD in the Department of Public Health at Temple University to better understand the factors that influence the health and well-being of children living in vulnerable communities.
  • Sally Perreault Darney serves as the editor-in-chief of environmental health perspectives (EHP) published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). She holds a PhD in anatomy and reproductive biology from the University of Hawaii and has conducted postdoctoral research at The Johns Hopkins University. She has established a research program reproductive toxicology and epidemiology in the U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development, influencing research priority strategic planning in chemical safety, sustainable communities, children’s health, and health disparities.
  • Maida Galvez, a board certified pediatrician, is currently an associate professor in the Departments of Preventive Medicine and Pediatrics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. She directs Mount Sinai’s Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit and practices General Pediatrics. She is co-principal investigator and a designated new investigator of an NIEHS and EPA funded research project titled “Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem,” a community based participatory research project examining the environmental determinants of childhood obesity. Her areas of interests include the urban built environment, endocrine disruptors, and childhood growth and development.
  • Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She is also professor of sociology at NYU and visiting professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell. She earned a PhD in molecular biology and an MPH in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, emphasizing the role of food marketing.

Breakout sessions include the following topics:

  • Air Quality in Western PA: What You Need to Know
  • Water Quality: What has Flint Taught Us?
  • Exposures/Green Chemistry in the Workplace: What are the risks?
  • The Unintended Health Consequences of Progress
  • Ensuring Environmental Protection for All
  • Connecting our Health to the Natural World
  • Creating Healthy Environments for our Children
  • Food in Western PA: The Building Block of our Future

 

CEUs are pending for: Health Education, Nursing, Public Health, Registered Dietician, and Social Work. Cost is $50.

To learn more or to register for the conference, go to: http://womenforahealthyenvironment.org/whats-happening/creating-healthy-communities-conference.html

Some scholarships are available – contact WHE’s office for more information – 412-404-2872 or email [email protected].

 

 

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