Public health students take action for climate justice: Raising awareness of climate change inequities
In spring 2021, students at five U.S. universities took action to raise awareness of climate change inequities and support climate justice.
Their activities were supported by APHA’s Student Champions for Climate Justice Awards, presented by the Association’s Center for Climate, Health and Equity.
Thanks to the awards, the students were inspired to highlight the health equity impacts of climate change, sharing information on air pollution, infrastructure, climate change, environmental hazards and more.
Read and share their reports on their activities:
• College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University: Better health through plant medicines
• Texas A&M University: Spreading knowledge on climate change, health inequities
• University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus: Seeking health equity, restorative justice for indigenous communities
• California State University-Northridge: Gas leaks at San Fernando Valley storage sites compromise health equity
• Grand Valley State University: Spotlighting barriers for people with disabilities during disasters
College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University: Better health through plant medicines
A significant portion of our healing originates from plants. Because climate change will impact plants negatively, we need to be sensitive to understanding these impacts.
In communities that will be disproportionately impacted by climate change and rely on traditional plant-based medicine, we must understand the ways our health is intersectional. Just as biodiversity enhances the strength of ecosystems, so too does cultural diversity strengthen our communities.
As we come to understand the intersectionalities, pluralisms and stories within our collective global health, we can strive for a climate justice, which respects, honors, celebrates and protects the healing of all.
This was the message that we shared with nearly 70 students, faculty, staff and community members with our “Health Is Intersectional” event sponsored through APHA’s Student Champions for Climate Justice Awards. A coalition of student leaders across various organizations presented the event.
We opened in ceremony with a poem illuminating Indigenous women’s roles in seed protection. In this way, we hoped to center narrative storytelling, a kaleidoscopic fusion expanding academic- and science-based knowledge, culture and art.
Following our poetry, we showed a pre-recorded video created by two of the student organizers in partnership with Steven Saupe, PhD, MS, a biology professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, who introduced various medicinal plants around our campus’s natural arboretum. Participants in the event began to learn about their surrounding plant community, and the ways in they might have been touched by some of the plants’ healing properties.
Following the video presentation, we listened to Hope Flannagan, a Native elder working at the Dream of Wild Health in Minneapolis. She spoke of plants as relatives and gifts, and told stories of white cedar, swamp tea, nettles and burdock, which populate the local areas. We also learned about the impact and significance of climate change from her perspective, and the possibilities of enhancing adaptive capacity within traditional medicine.
“I loved that Hope incorporated spirituality into climate issues and justice,” said one attendee. “Not only were we informed via science, but also the spiritual.”
Flannagan was the absolute highlight of the event, and we were honored that she could spend the evening with our community.
In 2014, the World Health Organization estimated that 70% to 95% of people in developing countries rely on traditional medicine for a primary source of health care. Many people across the globe rely on traditional medicine.
Applied ecologist Fikret Berekes defines traditional medicine as the “cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings, including humans, with one another and with their environment.”
The preference toward traditional medicine was and is attributed to accessibility, affordability, culture, history and spirituality — varying widely with great diversity across the globe. We all rely on plants and the earth within our health.
“Our connections to both are far deeper than we realize,” said one participant.
Charly Frisk is a senior at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, where she majors in environmental studies and peace studies with a concentration in biodiversity and human needs.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus: Seeking health equity, restorative justice for indigenous communities
On Earth Day, two speakers shared their insights with the Climate and Health Advocacy, Sustainability and Education student group on the intersection of climate and health equity within Indigenous communities.
Our Anschutz Medical Campus sits on the ancestral lands of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples. The long history of injustices committed against Indigenous peoples by colonizing powers has culminated in disparities that leave them with fewer resources to deal with the consequences of a changing climate, despite having contributed very little to the emissions responsible.
“It’s further erasure when you don’t have systems that protect, support or represent you,” said speaker Renée Millard-Chacon, a writer, educator, Danzante Azteca and Xicana activist. “It’s further erasure on top of the cultural erasure that’s already happened.”
Millard-Chacon said she uses her Master’s in Education to “interject cultural education, resiliency and resistance narratives back into the American identity.” Her intersectional work includes environmental justice legislation, community education to reclaim narratives that have been erased and soil restoration in spaces harmed by extractive industries.
Shelby Ross, an Oglala Sioux member and researcher at the University of Colorado-Boulder, spoke of some direct impacts of climate change on rural Indigenous communities, including forced relocation of Alaska Native communities due to rising sea levels, land loss, pollution after violation of Indigenous treaties by the U.S. government and unusual freezing events that damage crops and disrupt the ecology of traditional plants.
Ross spoke of the challenges that urban Indigenous communities face, describing her home of Commerce City, Colorado, as a “sacrifice zone.” The activities of a local oil refinery have long been linked to asthma, anemia, low-birthweight and other health issues.
To address these impacts, Ross works to bridge traditional indigenous ecological knowledge with modern scientific practices through incorporating elders’ perspectives on climate change and environmental stewardship into quantitative studies. She also explores decolonized methods of research, noting that environmental health studies “traditionally make humans the center of the ecosystem...and are designed to see human health as the most important...whereas Natives traditionally don’t think that way.”
Both speakers noted the challenges in their work, including white saviorism and hijacking of their stories for exploitation, insufficient funding, socioeconomic struggles, exclusion of Indigenous voices and the seemingly unbridled power of the fossil fuel industry. Moving forward, they both called for Indigenous communities to be heard, respected and appropriately compensated at every level of decisionmaking in the U.S. government.
Millard-Chacon called on those with privilege to listen, learn and find ways to relinquish their privileges.
“Seek out spaces that are doing that work and elevate them...and learn the decolonization program models and strategies that have come out of these communities,” she said.
Attendees responded to the speakers with passion, praise for their work and gratefulness for their willingness to share with us. Going forward, the Climate and Health Advocacy, Sustainability, and Education group hopes to use — and relinquish — our privileges for the benefit of Indigenous and other marginalized communities in the fight for health equity and restorative justice in the face of the climate crisis.
Hannah Paul is a dental student at the University of Colorado and president of the university’s Climate and Health Advocacy, Sustainability, and Education student group.
Texas A&M University: Spreading knowledge on climate change, health inequities
The Alpha Pi chapter of Eta Sigma Gamma chapter ran a three-day series devoted to climate justice and environmental racism.
The first day started with a one-hour panel discussion with three experts in the field of climate justice and environmental racism. Day Two continued with an energizing Jeopardy-style game focused on climate change and its effects on Texas. The series wrapped up on with a two-hour community cleanup by our chapter members.
Our series raised awareness of the impacts of climate change, social injustices, environmental racism and their affects on health. Further, we wanted our student members and other attendees to focus on climate change and its affects on Texas. We wanted them to think critically about ways in which we can get our government officials to better prepare for weather phenomenon after we saw the disparaging results of minor weather changes in Texas.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was challenging to host events on campus and get students and the greater community involved. We knew that it was a challenge to plan an online series. But more than ever, we saw persons in our age bracket outraged by the lack of federal response and resources aimed at climate change and its effects on communities. It was important to us to educate people on the adverse effects of climate justice and environmental racism on our health and connect with those who were already advocating for change.
During this experience, we gained new skills and learned a lot about ourselves as individuals and as a team. We had the task of planning events that, due to COVID-19 protocols, required a lot more university approval than we had imagined. We rallied together as a team to ensure we produced events that were a true representation of ourselves and our organization.
It was such a rewarding experience to see the joy on our chapter members’ faces when they found out we got our own street through College Station’s Adopt a Street program. It was great to know that they were ready to take action and were even planning ahead for more street cleanups.
Janae Alexander, MPH, CHES, is a doctoral student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University.
California State University-Northridge: Gas leaks at San Fernando Valley storage sites compromise health equity
On April 8, we hosted a virtual panel discussion with five stakeholders from two environmental disaster sites in the San Fernando Valley: the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, which experienced a major leak in 2015, and the Valley Generating Station, which had a methane leak in 2020.
We had both been conducting research on the disaster sites and wanted to bring more awareness to these issues. Although natural gas is used in people’s daily lives, many are unaware of how it impacts them and the environment, especially when there is a leak.
We connected with five stakeholders to collaborate and continue the push for change. Our panelists featured:
• Andrew Krowne, San Fernando Valley Community Advisory Group member and developer of the Environmental Health Tracker app;
• Angelica Duenas, a member of the Sun Valley Neighborhood Council;
• Jeffrey Nordella, MD, a primary care physician in the Porter Ranch area;
• Graciela Jiminez, a promotora and community activist; and
• Noemi Romo, a community and environmental activist.
During the event, the panelists discussed how natural gas storage facilities are human and environmental health hazards, their thoughts on how the two disaster sites were handled, how the disasters impacted the neighboring communities and ways in which local residents can take action and be more informed.
Attendees were engaged and interactive during the talk and Q&A portion. Attendees included community members in San Fernando Valley as well as students and staff from California State University-Northridge. It was surprising to see how many people were learning about the Aliso Canyon blowout for the first time, even though they lived only a few miles away.
At the end of our event, we sent out a survey to gather feedback and comments on our panel discussion. There were attendees who wanted to learn how they could get involved and be updated for future events and panel discussions. “Please keep having forums like these,” one attendee said.
Attendees included David Meza, public relations representative for SoCalGas, and Christine De Rosa, a representative from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. Our event also gained notice from the office of U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif. A field representative in the office followed up on our event with questions to learn more about natural gas.
We hope to continue to host more panel discussions like this one to keep the community informed, engaged and inspired to take action. Together, we can prevent more natural gas disasters from occurring and hold private companies and officials responsible for their actions.
Hayley Diep and Hanli Su are students at California State University-Northridge and interns at the university’s Health Equity Research and Education Center.
Grand Valley State University: Spotlighting barriers for people with disabilities during disasters
At Grand State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, students organized a panel discussion on barriers experienced by people with disabilities during disasters, including those related to climate change.
What was the purpose of your virtual academic community experience?
We worked to increase awareness and spread light in areas concerning accessibility for people with disabilities and disaster preparedness, especially as disasters are likely to increase in frequency as we continue to see affects from climate change.
Why did you feel it was important to host this experience and engage your academic community?
This was an incredible opportunity to help others think critically and engage with these issues in a way that helps to understand the struggles people with disabilities face in emergencies and how to better prepare.
This is important to us because in public health we are looking at issues with an intersectional lens. Curating experiences that seek to understand and respect an intersectional perspective allows us to work collaboratively and find solutions in an intersectional praxis.
What were the highlights of this experience?
The board of directors and members of our student organization stepped up without hesitation to the various roles asked of them. We all learned so much in such a short period of time and feel encouraged and confident to go after big projects in the future.
Our faculty advisor has amazing connections involving people with disabilities and their needs during disasters, and helped us to secure experts in these areas. We all felt so lucky to hear from emergency preparedness experts, directors, researchers and disability advocates.
Did anything surprising happen?
In marketing our event, we weren’t sure who would see and hear the message. We were shocked to find that people from all over the country were signing up and wanting to hear more. We look up to health professionals in the field, and it was really cool to see that they wanted to learn more about disabilities and disasters.
How was the experience received?
We have heard so many good things! In the survey responses that we received, learning objectives were accomplished and attendees rated our event five out of five stars.
What did you learn from the experience?
In developing this event, we learned about increasing accessibility for people with disabilities, being better communicators, how to delegate, how to ask for help and the smartest ways to use our energy.
What do you hope is next for climate justice action within the academic community?
We are hoping to use the platform of our organization to continue analyzing and bringing attention to problems with an intersectional lens. We are excited to continue working collaboratively and across disciplines.
Jazzmin McGuff and Erin Williams are co-vice presidents for Grand Valley State University’s Public Health Society and co-leaders for the facilitation of the project.
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