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Young Health Activists Give Us Hope |
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We are thrilled to share below four impressive Young Health Activist Awardees and information about our exciting intern, student, and early career projects.
The Young Health Activist Awards were presented at our Annual Gala last month! If you missed the Gala, you can watch it here.
We are also writing to ask you to support our student and early career programs. Your gifts allow us to train and help launch young health activist careers. You can have a huge impact on their lives! DONATE HERE.
In this newsletter:
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CONGRATS to our Health Activist Awardees!
We are thrilled to announce the winners of SF Bay PSR’s Young Health Activist Awards, given to heath science students, postgraduate trainees, and early career professionals. Each year we offer three awards, honoring work in our chapter’s three major areas of focus: nuclear abolition & peace, health equity & social justice, and environmental health.
We are pleased to report that we had such an outstanding panel of nominees this year, our committee is recognizing, not three, but four outstanding awardees.
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Anlan Cheney: Nuclear Abolition & Peace: Anlan worked as a journalist and teacher in Nebraska before returning to graduate school at the University of Nebraska where she received her master’s in public health epidemiology and at the University of Belgrade for a master’s in peace studies. Her work has focused on educating and mobilizing students and health professionals about their role – beyond just treating – in preventing the health harms of conflict, war, and structural violence.
Anlan has for the past few years emerged as an important leader within the Peace Caucus in affiliation with the American Public Health Association (APHA), serving as communications chair and program co-chair. She is also a member of PSR National’s #Demand Access campaign steering committee, working with a group of other young health professionals to educate and mobilize their peers to take action on national budget priorities regarding health, the military, and intersections of climate harm, nuclear threat, and issues of social justice.
Presently, Anlan is SF Bay PSR’s nuclear weapons abolition organizer. Congratulations Anlan! |
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India Rogers-Shepp: Health Equity & Social Justice: India is presently a medical student at Stanford University. She majored in molecular biology as an undergraduate at Princeton and received a master’s in medical science from Brown University. Her demonstrated commitment to science is equally matched by her commitment to social justice. After graduation, she worked with a community non-profit, HUD-certified lending and counseling agency to increase affordable rental and home-buying opportunities for low-income clients in Princeton.
She also worked with the Coalition for the Homeless in New York to investigate how COVID-19 amplified and compounded the negative health outcomes for people without homes. She has continued this line of research as a medical student at Stanford, where she is investigating the link between housing and health in recently re-homed populations.
In addition, she has served on the Board of Stanford’s Climate and Health committee, and led their community advocacy subgroup, and she was a co-organizer of the 2021 NorCal Symposium on Climate, Heatlh, and Equity. Congratulations India!
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Raj Fadadu: Environmental Health: Raj is a fourth-year medical student at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Raj’s commitment to environmental work goes back to his undergraduate days at UC Berkeley where his honors thesis focused on air pollution-related health risks of coal combustion. A publication of this work was instrumental in convincing the World Bank to divest from the building of a new coal-fired power plant in Kosovo.
For his master’s thesis at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, he studied the impacts of wildfire air pollution on eczema and itch. His work resulted in a seminal publication in the most prestigious clinical dermatology journal, JAMA Dermatology, bringing to the wider attention of dermatologists both the role of air pollution in triggering flares of atopic dermatitis and itch, and impacts of climate change on skin diseases. In his short tenure as a full-time student, Raj has somehow found the time to publish more than 20 papers, 15 of which deal with climate change, environmental toxins, and/or health disparities. And, he co-authored with SF Bay PSR Board Member Dr. Mary Williams a commentary in Jama Dermatology calling on organized dermatology to divest from fossil fuels.
Raj doesn’t just work with his pen. While at UC Berkeley, he founded the Environmental Health Working Group of the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition and co-founded Health Students for Climate Action. Later he served as the UCSF student co-lead for the first NorCal Symposium on Climate and Pandemic Resilience in Health Care. Presently, he is the student lead for the Wildfire Education Project at the new UC Center for Climate, Health, and Equity, where he and his colleagues have developed infographics and an online information hub to improve patient and provider education on wildfire-related health risks. Congratulations Raj! |
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Karly Hampshire: Environmental Health: Karly is a UCSF medical student taking a gap year to work on climate issues with the UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity. She led the nationwide effort to construct and implement the Planetary Health Report Card to assess medical schools’ engagement with climate education, research, community outreach, and advocacy. This metric-based report card is now employed by students in more than 80 medical schools internationally and has achieved attention in the world press and by publications in the Lancet and British Medical Journals.
She was also a founding member of the national organization, Medical Students for a Sustainable Future. Not pausing there, she is also leading the Climate Resources for Health Education Initiative as part of the Global Consortium On Climate and Health Education, bringing more than 200 students, residents and faculty from multiple institutions, including UCSF, Emory, and Harvard universities to develop standardized materials for climate and health education.
She is also leading a project to investigate and mitigate the environmental impacts of in-person interviews for medical school and post graduate training. These are just some of her engagements in medical education and climate, work that has resulted to date in eight publications in the medical literature and four in the lay press.
She is also engaged in research on climate health impacts, including a study of wildfire smoke and systemic fungal infections and one on heavy rainfall and HIV prevalence and risk in Sub-Saharan Africa. Congratulations Karly! |
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JOIN our Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee
We are seeking young health professionals, students, and advocates interested in peace activism to join our Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee. As a member of the committee, you will champion the next wave of the peace and nuclear abolition movement alongside experienced activists and advocates in the region. You will bring your intersectional perspective and interests to the development of new strategies and programs, driving forward policy making, organizing, and outreach activities. To join email Annie@sfbaypsr.org |
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SF Bay PSR Intern Projects
Every year our interns contribute to our overall advocacy efforts, learn how to incorporate activism into their health professional careers, and produce inspiring projects. We are thrilled to share their 2022 projects with you! Thank you to all our interns for their important contributions!
READ MORE about our interns' projects BELOW and more about their careers HERE and HERE!
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Alma Hernandez: Knowledge of Building Electrification: A Brief Survey of the San Francisco/ East Bay Communities: Building electrification is the shift toward zero-carbon electricity, which would be not only beneficial for the planet but also for public health and safety. Gas stoves emit hazardous gasses that harm the health of people and contribute to the development of chronic respiratory conditions. People of color are exposed at greater rates overall to such gasses and particulate matter. This has to do with many social factors ranging from poor outdoor air quality, lack of knowledge about the health harms of gas appliances, lack of resources, rental/landlord issues. This community survey was designed to gauge information in the Bay Area surrounding environmental justice and building electrification. We focused on how environmental organizations are centering a discourse on the relationship between environmental justice and building electrification. READ MORE HERE. |
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Daisy Valdivieso: “Why Climate Activists Should Care about Healthcare Waste and Overuse," was published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health! Congratulations to Daisy and Board Member Dr. Thomas Newman for their article that discusses the important issue of healthcare waste and overuse. READ the ARTICLE HERE. |
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Jasmine Campos: Gas Stove Pollution: A Fact Sheet on Reducing Your Risk. |
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Allie Smith: Comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the proposed Sargent Ranch Quarry Project. After a thorough review of the environmental impact report and analysis of the health and cultural harms the proposed quarry would impose on communities, Allie wrote professional comments opposing the quarry and submitted them to the Santa Clara County Department of Planning & Development. READ more about the PROJECT HERE and the LETTER HERE. |
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Lilah Blalock: Health and Environmental Benefits of Building Electrification (BE) Infographics. Lilah created a series of infographics that will be posted in November on our social media channels and used to amplify building electrification resources and health harms of gas appliances information including our new BE explainer video. FOLLOW us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to see these engaging and informative infographics and learn about BE! |
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INTERNSHIP APPLICATION Deadline for 2023 internship: December 1, 2022
SF Bay PSR’s internship program is designed to teach the next generation of healthcare professionals activism, leadership, and advocacy skills in our areas of concentration: nuclear weapons abolition, climate change, environmental health, and intersecting social and racial justice issues.
Who can apply? Primarily public health, pre-med, medical, nursing, or other students (enrolled or in between degrees) who are interested in incorporating activism into their professional health career.
Internships are usually one year long. Interns are paid an hourly rate of $17 and classified as a non-exempt employee. Work hours fluctuate from 5-8 hours per week with about three evening meetings and events per month.
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Young Health Professional Education and Activism Support
SF Bay PSR Environmental Health committee members actively participate in the expansion of climate-and-health education at UCSF and Stanford and support young health professional activism. Recent activities include mentoring medical students to develop leadership skills in environmental health justice, advocating for the widespread adoption of virtual residency interviews, and leading discussions and class sessions on the intersection of climate change and health.
Some recent highlights include:
NorCal Symposium on Climate, Health, and Equity was on September 23, 2022: A shout out to Drs. Barbara Erny and Marjaneh Moini for mentoring students from Stanford, UC Davis, and UCSF, including our intern Lilah Blalock, who helped to organize this year’s NorCal Symposium.
UCSF Resident Dr. Katie Lichter has been working on two important projects with support from SF Bay PSR:
1. Published a 'Call-to-Action' editorial titled “Transitioning to Environmentally Sustainable, Climate-Smart Radiation Oncology Care.” While this is specific to oncology, they hope it will encourage all healthcare professionals to consider writing similar pieces specific to their medical specialties/scope of practice.
2. Waste Audit Toolkit: UCSF and Stanford residents collaborated to develop a 6-minute waste audit toolkit. This quality improvement toolkit allows for easy tracking and monitoring of the amount of waste produced in clinical settings or flowing from specific procedures, and has provided steps for waste reduction and mitigation. Additionally, the toolkit outlines steps for making the audit an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) quality improvement project. Anyone interested can fill out this form to access the toolkit.
(Dr. Lichter says this toolkit was developed via inspiration from SF Bay PSR mentors and discussion about expanding quality improvement (QI) projects beyond a single department/institution.)
UCSF Medical Student Karly Hampshire has been instrumental in two important projects with support from SF Bay PSR:
1. The Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC) Initiative released its third annual report on Earth Day, summarizing the work of teams at 74 schools in 7 countries. Check out their updated website or new paper in The Lancet Planetary Health to learn more. In addition, the PHRC has officially gone interprofessional, with pilots in international nursing and pharmacy programs recently completed.
Ensuring Inter-Generational Activism to Protect Public Health at California State University, East Bay Twenty California State University, East Bay public health students, under the leadership of Professor Nidhi Khosla, partnered with SF Bay PSR to complete their capstone projects focusing on identifying strategies to advance inter-generational activism on nuclear weapons abolition and our climate emergency. The students researched the mental health impacts of climate change and the public health consequences of nuclear weapons. READ MORE HERE. |
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JOIN our Environmental Health Committee We are seeking young health professionals, students, and advocates interested in working toward a world where everyone is free of the existential threats of the climate crisis and environmental degradation. As a committee member, you will have the opportunity to gain committee support for your own projects and work on group projects to support environmental justice allies, influence policy makers, and advocate for climate, environmental, and public health. To join email Allie@sfbaypsr.org |
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