12/04/2024: Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Impacts on Worker Well Being

Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Impacts on Worker Well Being

About the webinar:

This presentation will provide a conceptual framework for thinking about the ways climate change can affect worker health. It will then provide examples of industries at high risk, vulnerable worker populations, and specific health threats. Strategies to protect workers from climate-related health threats will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, learners will be able to: 

  • List at least three ways that climate-related stressors can affect worker health and safety

  • Discuss specific strategies to protect workers from excessive heat in indoor and outdoor work environments

  • Describe health trade-offs that can occur, for example, related to the fact that PPE can increase risk of heat stress

Speaker: Gina Solomon, MD, MPH

Gina Solomon is the Chief of the Division of Occupational, Environmental & Climate Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). At UCSF, Dr. Solomon oversees clinical occupational health activities at three hospital sites, leads research efforts in environmental health, and directs the Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM) residency program. From 2018-2023 Dr. Solomon was a program director at the Public Health Institute (PHI) in Oakland, CA, where she established and led the Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC) project to identify, test, and expand actionable interventions to reduce climate change impacts in farmworker communities. From 2012-2018, Dr. Solomon served as the Deputy Secretary for Science and Health at the California Environmental Protection Agency. She was a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1996-2012. Dr. Solomon has served on multiple boards and committees of the National Academies of Sciences; World Health Organization; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and other federal and state agencies. Dr. Solomon received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, her M.D. from Yale, and did her M.P.H. and her residency and fellowship training in internal medicine and occupational and environmental medicine at Harvard.

ACCREDITATION

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Health designates this activity for a maximum of 1.0 Contact Hour. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion will be available to webinar participants who are present for the complete, live webinar, and logged in with their registered email address. Call-in attendees are not eligible for certificates at this time - Please download the Zoom app to log in via email on your smartphone whenever possible.

In order to receive your Certificate of Completion, qualified learners must complete the post-webinar evaluation within 7 days of the webinar. A link to the evaluation will be emailed to qualified learners 24 hours after the webinar via no-reply@zoom.us. Qualified learners who submit their evaluation will receive a Certificate of Completion via email, and can also print/save the certificate from their browser after submitting their evaluation.

If you're not able to attend the live presentation, no problem! We record most presentations and will host them on our website provided we have permission to do so. Presentation recordings are not eligible for Certificates of Completion.

ACCESSIBILITY:

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact Will Bellamy at (510) 642-8365 or wbellamy@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.

California Labor Lab Logo

About the California Labor Lab

The California Labor Lab is a collaboration among investigators at UCSF, UC Berkeley, and the California Department of Public Health. The Lab is housed at the Philip R Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF. Our mission is to extend the pursuit of health and safety for workers in traditional employment to those in a wide range of alternative arrangements in partnership with affected communities.