Health Students for a Healthy Climate Drive Renewed Emphasis on Planetary Health in Medicine
“There are many ways that health and climate change intersect,” said Anna Rahrick, a third-year University of Minnesota Medical School student. Rahrick’s interest in the relationship between climate and public health led her to Health Students for a Healthy Climate, an interdisciplinary student group aimed at helping health professionals learn about the impacts of climate… Read more »
How climate change will affect Minnesota’s outdoor workforce
The effects of working in this heat can be dire, especially for workers who are not acclimated to high temperatures, said Laalitha Surapaneni, M.D., MPH, an assistant professor and hospitalist at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Health professionals declare Line 3 a public health crisis
Health professionals and Indigenous activists held a day of solidarity in St. Paul, Minnesota, and other U.S cities on Aug. 17 calling for an end to the construction of the Enbridge Line 3 project. They describe shutting down Line 3 as a critical health protective measure. In St. Paul, a delegation of health professionals delivered… Read more »
Health care workers join the fight to stop the Line 3 pipeline
Medical professionals around the country rallied on Tuesday against the expansion of Enbridge’s Line 3 crude oil pipeline, calling it a threat to human and planetary health. “The health of Minnesotans is at risk,” said Teddie Potter, director of planetary health at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, addressing a crowd in St. Paul,… Read more »
Joining Fight Against Line 3, Health Professionals Urge Biden to Block Project
U.S. doctors, nurses, and other health professionals came together Tuesday for a national day of solidarity against Line 3 that included various events and a letter calling on President Joe Biden to block Enbridge’s tar sands project.
In the midst of a wildfire smoke crisis, Minnesota needs coordinated disaster preparedness and response
What we’ve been experiencing statewide isn’t just a little bit of air pollution. It is a prolonged period of the worst air quality Minnesota has ever experienced. As a nurse specializing in environmental health, I am both deeply concerned for the health of the residents of my state and frustrated by the lack of coordinated… Read more »
‘Unconscionable and appalling’: Doctors on Enbridge Line 3
As physicians, our duty is to protect the health of all Minnesotans, now and for the future. As daily witnesses to the importance of clean air, water, and land to human health, we are deeply distressed about the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline currently under construction across our state and through 1855 Treaty… Read more »
Minnesota’s air quality is poor. Here’s how to stay healthy on bad air days.
In the last couple weeks, Minnesota has been visited periodically by a heavy cloud of haze, courtesy of smoke from wildfires up near Canada, borne south on the wind. Since hazy air like this is expected all weekend and into next week MinnPost asked Teddie Potter, director of planetary health at the University of Minnesota’s School of… Read more »
Nearly 800 Line 3 pipeline workers tested positive for COVID-19
A total of 788 workers building Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline through the US state of Minnesota have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data obtained by Al Jazeera from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). In November, more than 200 healthcare workers and Indigenous tribal leaders petitioned Governor Tim Walz to issue an emergency stay… Read more »
Working upstream
Health-care workers often conceptualise addressing the social and structural determinants of health as working upstream. In response to the racial disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Movement for Black Lives, health systems are acknowledging systemic racism, promoting implicit bias training, and screening for the social determinants of health. Although welcome, these changes will not achieve… Read more »
