Climate change to take center stage at APHA 2017 in Atlanta: Registration open
==============================================================================

* Lindsey Wahowiak

When APHA declared 2017 the Year of Climate Change and Health, it kicked off a year of elevating evidence of the ways climate affects human health.

And at APHA’s 2017 Annual Meeting and Expo, the year’s efforts will culminate in five days of heavy-hitting research and best practices on the topic.

This year’s Annual Meeting will be an embodiment of its theme, “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Climate Changes Health,” when it arrives in Atlanta Nov. 4-8. From speakers to session tracks to events throughout the meeting, climate and public health will be at the forefront of every opportunity — starting with the venue, as the Georgia World Congress Center is one of the 15 largest LEED-certified buildings in the world.

“As the effects of climate change on health become more and more apparent, it’s our duty as leaders in public health to act,” said Georges Benjamin, MD, APHA executive director. “This is an issue that goes beyond partisan politics; it is imperative that we come together now before countless lives are lost to the devastating effects of climate change.”

For its part, APHA is working to embody the theme by taking steps to “green” the Annual Meeting. The 2017 meeting will be shuttle-free in walkable downtown Atlanta. Not adding to city traffic will reduce emissions and promote safe walking to improve health, said Anna Keller, MAT, APHA’s director of convention services. Keller added that improved walkability and walking opportunities will help meeting attendees rack up mileage for this year’s steps challenge, which will be announced in the fall. For attendees with mobility issues, an on-call accessibility van will be available.

Also in line with the meeting’s theme is a smaller printed program. This year’s streamlined guide to event sessions and locations takes up less paper and waste — at just 100 pages, compared with the 2016 program’s 400 pages — and attendees can opt out of using a book altogether, as they will have full access to meeting details through the mobile app, online program and APHA website. This year’s conference bag is also an opt-in, encouraging attendees to bring their own bags and even reuse bags from previous meetings, Keller said.

APHA has also committed to using reusable building material during the meeting. To help reduce waste, this year’s registration area will be built with materials that will be used again in future years, said Angelica Walker, APHA’s meetings and marketing coordinator. Walker also emphasized the importance of collaboration during the Annual Meeting, from working as a group to achieve the steps challenge goals to finding a carbon offsets partner for the meeting. To learn more, visit [bit.ly/greenapha](http://bit.ly/greenapha).

“Fighting against climate change is not one person’s job,” Walker told *The Nation’s Health.* “It will take all of us working together to achieve our goals.”

Walker credited APHA’s Food and Environment Working Group and the Environment Section’s Climate Change and Health Topic Committee for helping to green the meeting.

Annual Meeting attendees will be able to tailor their schedules to the theme. Annual Meeting program planners have selected hundreds of abstracts on climate change and health that will be presented during scientific and poster sessions. Such sessions are indicated in the online program with an encircled “T” icon, Walker said.

Leaders on climate change will take the main stage as well, as plenary sessions will focus on the theme. Environmental activist Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation of Northern Alberta, Canada, and leader in the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, will serve as the keynote speaker for the opening session on Sunday, Nov. 5. As part of the theme, her address will include her work on Indigenous Climate Action, a network to support indigenous climate leadership and focus on environmental racism.

Gina McCarthy, MS, former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, will discuss her efforts as the head of former President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan during Monday, Nov. 6’s general session on the future of environmental health. McCarthy is now a Richard L. and Ronay A. Menschel senior leadership fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Advocates of environmental justice as social justice will not want to miss Wednesday, Nov. 8’s closing session on climate change and social justice. The session’s speakers will help move from this year’s theme to the 2018 theme of health equity.

Speakers include Chieftess Queen Quet of the Gullah-Geechee Nation; Kimberly Wasserman-Nieto, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization; Chief Albert Naquin of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians; and Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, will moderate.

For more information on the APHA 2017 Annual Meeting theme, speakers and green initiatives, visit [www.apha.org/annualmeeting](http://www.apha.org/annualmeeting).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association