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Apr 4
2023

What’s new
A Story of Health: Narrative in Public Health Training and Practice

By Ted Schettler, MD, MPH
Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network; Science Advisor, Health Care Without Harm

Story telling has a long history in medical training and practice. 

Narratives describe a patient’s experience of illness, a clinician’s experience caring for them, or both. Yet, contemporary medical practice tends to de-emphasize narratives in favor of facts and findings gleaned from laboratory tests, imaging studies, and brief hospital or office visits.  . . .

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Mar 9
2023

What’s new
Chemicals in building materials: Disproportionate impacts on people of color

By Jeff Hurley and El'gin Avila
BlueGreen Alliance

Building products and materials that make up our indoor spaces can cause long-term harm to human health. This much we know.

We also know that while chemicals and air pollutants don’t discriminate, generations of systemic inequalities have caused racial injustices and disproportionate exposures of people of color to hazardous chemicals. What deserves more consideration is where there are building product opportunities to improve the health of people of color.  . . .

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Feb 24
2023

What’s new
Another painful reminder of PVC plastic’s toxic lifecycle

By Mike Schade
Director, Toxic Free Future's Mind the Store program

CHE is cross-posting blogs from various experts responding to the tragic train derailment in Ohio on February 3, 2023. The following is an excerpt from a Toxic Free Future blog posted on February 17. You'll find the full version here

The vinyl chloride train derailment in Ohio is a modern environmental disaster playing out in real time. Sadly, this is yet another painful reminder of the dangers of making, transporting, using, and disposing of chemicals in plastics, especially polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.  . . .

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Feb 1
2023

What’s new
Past and future of environmental health research

By Linda S. Birnbaum, PhD
Former Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

While the potential impact of the environment on our health has been recognized for thousands of years, the need to use a multi- and trans-disciplinary approach has only been recognized relatively recently. Exposures must be broadly defined and inclusive – the environment includes social and economic factors, as well as natural stressors, pollutants, infectious agents, and nutrition.   . . .

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Jan 26
2023

What’s new
Because Health

By Karen Wang, PhD, MSc
Science Educator, Healthy Building Consultant

The public’s knowledge of environmental health issues has changed tremendously over the past few decades, with CHE playing a critical role. In 2018, while I was Director of CHE, we launched Because Health, an environmental health educational campaign for the general public. Because Health is now a part of the Center for Environmental Health, a nonprofit leading the nationwide effort to protect people from toxic chemicals.  . . .

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Jan 12
2023

What’s new
Scientists recommend changes to chemical regulatory process

By UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE)

This blog is excerpted from a blog posted today by UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE). See the complete posting from PRHE here.

With chemical production and use on the rise, and continued evidence that many chemicals in everyday products are linked to health problems such as cancer, infertility, and neurodevelopmental conditions, an interdisciplinary group of scientific experts said changes are urgently needed to better protect people from harmful chemicals.  . . .

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Jan 4
2023

What’s new
Impacting US chemical policy & environmental health

By Swati Rayasam, MSc
Science Associate, UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Science & Policy team

This article was co-authored with Dr. Tracey Woodruff, see bios of both authors below.

 

Chemical pollution threatens the health of our planet and everyone who lives on it.

Despite this, the manufacture and production of chemicals has continued to increase; 350,000+ chemicals and chemical mixtures registered worldwide have led to extensive and disproportionate exposures, and generations of children being born pre-polluted.
 . . .

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Dec 30
2022

What’s new
A Perspective from Alaska

By Pamela K. Miller, PhD
Founding Executive Director, Alaska Community Action on Toxics; Co-Chair, International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)

In the early years of CHE, the staff of Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) would eagerly join the monthly teleconferences and huddle together around the conference speaker phone in the early morning darkness of Alaska.  . . .

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Dec 5
2022

What’s new
Climate Health Activism: Twenty Years Out and Counting

By Robert Gould, MD
Associate Adjunct Professor, UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment; President of SF Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.

The dawn of CHE came at a cusp of our environmental health movement, when health professionals moved beyond efforts to reduce pollution emanating from the healthcare sector, toward transforming healthcare to respond to our climate crisis.  . . .

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Nov 21
2022

What’s new
Celebrating CHE’s Legacy & Future

By Kristin Schafer, MA
Director, Collaborative on Health & the Environment

Last Saturday afternoon, longtime environmental health leaders gathered in the Commonweal gallery in Bolinas, California to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE). 

What an amazing roomful of people.  . . .

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