Kathleen's Environmental Health Blog

1. In terms of how to transition to renewable energies, there's both personal choices that can be made as well as policy choices that can be made. Regarding my personal involvement, if and when I become a homeowner I'd like to implement solar panels in my home to be more sustainable. I'd also like to compost and grow as much of my own food as possible. Regarding more widespread energy practices, I'd like to be involved in lobbying for safer and more sustainable energy practices. Before this class, I didn't think about the ways in which nurses could lobby for sustainable energy practices. I was amazed to watch the video on fracking in Australia and knowing that nurses had a major role in the production of that video, which inspires a lot of confidence in what nurses can do to use their voices for good in these situations and in the climate crisis. One way to do so is to call our representatives, and another is to actually get out and protest and speak out about the...

1. Climate Change and its effect on the health of communities appears to be an insurmountable problem given the currents status of emissions and lack of sufficient effort by government to curb them. Given that unchecked climate change will lead to massive food shortages, increased air pollution, increased wildfires, temperature fluctuation, and increased vector disease, it's something that I certainly don't feel prepared for as a nurse. While these realities may slowly happen, it's important to keep in mind that many of these problems have already started. For example, mosquitoes are able to travel further north in the United States due to warming temperatures, meaning that vector borne disease can become a bigger problem, and that we may start to be exposed to diseases we were not previously exposed to. In this sense, it's important to educate patients on the importance of eliminating standing water around their homes, making sure that they have proper waste disposal, ...

1. My clinic regularly uses cavicide wipes which I was interested in learning more about from the MSDS information. The MSDS for cavicide was 6 pages and not very user-friendly. It was filled with jargon that was difficult to understand as a healthcare provider. The MSDS also had no mention until page 3 that people utilizing it should use gloves and be in well ventilated areas, which are very important points. It might be better if at the top of each MSDS page, it lists a couple of easy to read, take-home points, such as 'wear gloves when touching'. 2.  I read about wildfires on OSHA and the WHO's websites. One particular aspect of wildfire health that I was interested in was post-fire health. OSHA and the WHO discussed the danger of inhaling ash, as well as the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning post wildfire. It's also important to be aware of possible spills of hazardous material after fires.  Especially living in California nowadays, wildfires are a huge risk and c...

1. I found some news on California's law that new homes must have solar panels on their roofs for energy sources. In Sacramento, local government is determining if homeowners can receive solar from off-site solar generators, or if it has to be from the homeowner's own home. If Sacramento approves off-site solar, it's likely that other cities would follow. One consideration is that on-home solar provides benefits of: extra energy bill savings per month, ability to keep lights on during a blackout, as well as less money invested overall into external off-site solar generators. The fact that solar panels can create energy that allows for power to be on during black outs (which could become more and more common as climate change makes fire season longer and more challenging) has an immense impact on health. For one, people that rely on refrigerators to keep medications like insulin cool, or who need CPAP machines to be plugged in, would greatly benefit from clean energy that ca...

1. I imagine that part of the problem with food waste is that people do not realize that food waste contributes to methane gas release, a powerful greenhouse gas. Nurses, as a trusted profession in the community, can and should make an effort to educate patients on the environmental harms of contributing to food waste and how it effects the environment, in addition to the fact that wasting food is problematic when thinking about people who go hungry. Nurses should be checking in with patients regarding their nutrition choices, especially in the primary care setting, and as part of that discussion they could bring up a point about reducing food waste. 2. The issue of pharmaceutical waste is another issue where I imagine there isn't much knowledge or recognition by the public of the issue. Given that pharmaceutical waste is so harmful, especially to groundwater, nurses have a responsibility of educating their patients on what to do with medications they are no longer taking and their...

1. I had no idea that sewage water undergoes such an extensive process to be cleaned, filtered, and disinfected before it is released back into the environment. Prior to this module, I somehow thought that sewage and wastewater just disappeared - which makes no sense. I looked up the locations of treatment plants in San Francisco and was not surprised to find out that there are some in Hunter's Point/Bayview - which experience high amounts of disparities in the city. Given that this area already experiences disparities, it's certainly an environmental justice concern. 2. It's hard to imagine a new campaign for getting toilets in India, but I would hope that international pressure and an overall call to action by folks around the world would encourage the government to take extensive action with this issue. It's a major social justice issue in that the poorest are without. If there was some way to create a community based campaign in which folks could be provided compost...

1. I've always been aware that we should wash fruit and vegetables before eating them, but I wasn't aware about the extent of which pesticides leave residual after washing and scrubbing. I also didn't realize the extent of the number of pesticides that are used in fruits and vegetables, and when I looked up pesticides used for blueberries, there were at least ten listed. The recommendations for washing vs. peeling stated that it's better to not peel fruits and vegetables as the skin is where much of the fiber is in the produce. In terms of public health, educating the public on the amount of pesticides used, the fact that it's impossible to get rid of them after their use because they go into the fruit or vegetable itself, as well as the fact that the majority of people exposed to pesticides are migrant farmworkers who experience health disparities because of that exposure should all be made clear to the public. The social justice implications of pesticide use towar...