{"id":42876,"date":"2019-01-17T08:57:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42876"},"modified":"2019-01-17T08:57:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:57:54","slug":"health-departments-are-on-climate-changes-front-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42876","title":{"rendered":"Health Departments Are On Climate Change’s Front Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HEALTH DEPARTMENTS ARE ON CLIMATE CHANGE\u2019S FRONT LINES<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
From extreme heat to mosquito-borne diseases, climate change is having a huge public health impact. Can health departments keep up?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Intro<\/div>\n
Photo \u00a9 iStockphoto.com\/Karl Spencer<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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January 2, 2019 \u2014 <\/span>When the rains of Hurricane Harvey finally dissipated in late summer 2017, the potential for health hazards lingered on. At least 25 million gallons<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>(95 million liters) of sewage floated through the streets of Houston and surrounding areas. Chemical and other industrial plants pulsed out millions of pounds<\/a><\/u>\u00a0of dangerous air pollution. Soggy homes grew mold and harbored bacteria and fine particles that snaked into residents\u2019 lungs.<\/span><\/p>\n

A full year after the storm, a survey<\/a><\/u>\u00a0found that one in every six Gulf Coast residents affected by Harvey said someone in their household had a new or worsened health condition. We can blame the hurricane for the health hazards, but that hurricane, according to experts, was made substantially worse<\/a><\/u>\u00a0because of climate change. And when it comes to the health hazards relating to climate change, hurricanes are far from the only culprit. Extreme heat events, increasingly frequent and severe wildfires, the spread of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases \u2014 these and more are affecting human health. And sitting on the front lines in the effort to prepare for, and respond to, all those climate-related health effects, are U.S. public health departments \u2014\u00a0state and local agencies around the country that are charged with assessing and protecting communities\u2019 health and coordinating services.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re where the rubber hits the road,\u201d says Aaron Bernstein<\/a><\/u>, a pediatrician at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital and co-director of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health\u2019s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE). Public health departments large and small have begun climate change programs of various sorts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEALTH DEPARTMENTS ARE ON CLIMATE CHANGE\u2019S FRONT LINES From extreme heat to mosquito-borne diseases, climate change is having a huge public health impact. Can health departments keep up? Photo \u00a9 iStockphoto.com\/Karl Spencer January 2, 2019 \u2014 When the rains of Hurricane Harvey finally dissipated in late summer 2017, the potential for health hazards lingered on. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,24011,6513,395,15724],"class_list":["post-42876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-dave-levitan","tag-ensia","tag-health","tag-hurricane-harvey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42877,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42876\/revisions\/42877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}