Climate change and the resulting impacts on our environment results in increasing public health threats, with a myriad of concerns and challenges affecting state and territorial epidemiologists. Within public health epidemiology, climate change is expected to affect many disciplines, including injury (e.g., motor vehicle crashes from intense precipitation or melting sea ice or increased carbon monoxide poisonings from increased severe weather and power outages), environmental health (e.g., chemical waste sites inundated from sea level rise or increased flooding and failure of private water wells), veterinary public health (e.g., changing vector ranges), occupational health (e.g., changing occupational exposures from industry or weather changes) as well as morbidity patterns of specific diseases such as respiratory disease (increased morbidity for asthma and other respiratory conditions with increased drought and wildfires). Global changes in climate and the impacts are being seen first, and with more severe outcomes, in northern latitudes, such as Alaska. Alaska also has a smaller state population with just a few cities and many rural areas, a pattern similar to many CSTE members’ jurisdictions. Therefore, this year’s workshop will focus on Alaska as a case study for climate change health impacts.
This year’s environmental health pre-conference workshop will kick-off with a presentation on a health impact assessment being conducted in Alaska and focused on climate change. Following the introduction, the workshop will feature interdisciplinary presentations on how climate change has been integrated into a variety of disciplines including occupational health, respiratory health including asthma and the contributions of pollen counts, tribal epidemiology, data tools and resources, and more. The interactive workshop will include presentations and facilitated discussion.