2021 NorCal Mini Symposium on Climate and Pandemic Resilience
February 18, 2021| 12:00-1:30pm| Virtual Zoom Event
Above is the keynote from the February 2021 Norcal Mini Symposium on Climate and Pandemic Resilience. Dr. Salas spoke about how to apply a climate lens to health policy as we consider ways to green clinics and hospitals and train a climate-ready workforce. Dr. Salas is Affiliated Faculty and previous Burke Fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) and a Yerby Fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also a practicing emergency medicine physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Salas has served as the lead author of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change U.S. Brief since 2018 and founded and leads its Working Group of over 70 U.S. organizations, institutions, and centers working at the nexus of climate change and health. Dr. Salas was a Co-Director for the first Climate Crisis and Clinical Practice Symposium and co-leads the broader Initiative in partnership with The New England Journal of Medicine. She also serves on the planning committee for the National Academy of Medicine’s Climate Change and Human Health Initiative and has testified before Congress for the full House Committee on Oversight and Reform on how climate change is harming health. She engages in research on how climate change is impacting the healthcare system and developing evidence-based adaptation. She lectures and serves on committees at the nexus of climate and health nationally and internationally, advises and publishes in high impact journals, and her work and expertise are regularly featured in mainstream media outlets like the New York Times, NPR, Time, and the Associated Press.
This event served as a touchpoint 5 months following our Fall 2020 Symposium on Climate and Pandemic Resilience. Subgroup breakouts following our keynote provided opportunities for continued netoworking, problem solving, and community-building surrounding issues in climate change and health.