Climate Change, Sustainability, and Health

Purpose

The purpose of the Climate Change, Sustainability, and Health Special Interest Group is to increase awareness and visibility of the overlap among climate change, environmental sustainability, and human health among APS membership and to leverage the expertise of APS members in addressing the climate change and environmental sustainability crisis and its impact on public health, with a particular focus on health equity and justice.

Examples of topics within the scope of the Special Interest Group include (but are not limited to):

• Environmental justice, how systemic racism contributes to climate change-related health disparities, and improving health equity related to climate change and environmental sustainability
• The impact of air quality on human health (e.g., pulmonary diseases, sleep, infant mortality, etc.)
• The restorative and stress-reducing benefits of pleasant natural environments and benefits of nature-based interventions (e.g., through the use of psychophysiological and psychoneuroimmunology measures)
• Examining the impact of climate change and climate disasters on physical and mental health outcomes (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease, sleep, depression, anxiety, trauma, climate change as a chronic stressor that contributes to allostatic load, etc.)
• Developing, implementing, and disseminating environmental and human health co-benefit interventions at the individual and community level (e.g., promoting plant-based and low red meat diets, active transportation, engaging in community gardening, etc.)
• The application of behavior change interventions and affective science to climate-related and pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., role of motivation, oxytocin, bonding, affect, beliefs, etc. in promoting behaviors related to climate change and environmental sustainability)
• Approaches to incorporating climate modeling data into the work of psychosomatic/behavioral science (e.g., how should our understanding of the impacts of psychology, behavior, social/physical environments on health adapt to incorporate global heating, extreme/variable weather, and projected climate impacts on all aspects of human existence?)
• Mapping geographic and demographic determinants of current and future risk for heat stress, extreme weather, and political and food instability to identify opportunities for targeted intervention
• Increasing visibility and awareness of environmental racism and climate gentrification (e.g., the impact of how power is produced on BIPOC communities, presence of “sacrifice zones,” dominant culture appropriating resources and displacing BIPOC communities via “climate gentrification,” White Americans contributing more to air pollution more than Black and Hispanic Americans who disproportionately experience the health impacts of air pollution, etc.)
• Prioritizing intervention targets according to GHG emissions reduction and climate/health risk reduction. For example:

• • Include established GHG emission values and other environmental measures to operationalize the risk-reduction impact of co-benefit interventions to evaluate the climate change mitigation and adaptation value of individual, community, and systemic behavior change in addition to using traditional behavioral medicine health outcome measures (i.e., measure both climate and human benefit outcomes such as GHG emissions reduction, air quality, number of asthma exacerbations, cardiovascular disease events, A1c reduction, etc.)

• • Identify ways in which behavior change can be tailored to maximize the impact on GHG reduction based on local context (e.g., reducing transportation emissions in certain areas vs investing in home insulation in other areas depending on which action would have the most impact on reducing GHG emissions in that particular area)
• Promoting science-based advocacy regarding climate change, environmental sustainability, and human health including environmental justice and health equity
• Applying pro-environmental behaviors and practices within APS (e.g., eliminating use of plastic wrapping on print versions of Psychosomatic Medicine, changing the method of delivery for Psychosomatic Medicine to electronic by default with an “opt-in” print version option, offering low-carbon transportation to conferences/telecommuting options, offering carbon offsets for conference travel, reducing the production of conference “swag” in favor of the option of donating to causes that address climate change and promote climate/environmental justice, etc.).