Climate Change

MISSION STATEMENT

As the greatest health threat of our time, climate change impacts children and underserved communities most severely. We are pediatricians in AAP’s California Chapter 2 who work to protect and improve the health of children by taking action to mitigate climate change and reduce families’ exposure to its harms. We will achieve this through education of our community members and fellow pediatricians, research on climate change and environmental health, and advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. To protect our children’s future, we are dedicated to decreasing the pace of climate change and making progress toward a healthier, more equitable society.

Download This Official Brochure For The Climate Change Committee: Climate Change One Sheet

AAP-CA2 serves over 1,500 members in the counties of Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura!

Click Here To Join This Committee!

Climate Ambassador Training With ecoAmerica Available On Demand At No Cost!

You have several four-hour training options offered by ecoAmerica, which you can do online and on your own time. Whether you want to take the training that focuses on engaging in your local community, connecting with your faith community, or as a health professional, you will strengthen your knowledge about climate change, working for climate solutions, and how to speak and advocate on the issue with confidence and success. The training is FREE and comes with presentation resources and an invitation to join a community of practice and collaboration, along with 3 CE credits!
 

Trainee GOTV (Get Out The Vote) Toolkit

The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health has created a new guide that outlines all the information you need to make a plan and vote this November and every election, including details on requesting an absentee ballot, early voting options, and finding your polling place.

We hope you’ll find this guide helpful in getting ready to vote this fall and encouraging your friends, family, and colleagues to do the same. Together, we can make a difference for the sake of our health systems, patients, and communities.

Resident Voting Guide

Toolkit

PAST EVENTS & RESOURCES

Voting As A Social Determinant Of Health - With Dr. Richard Pan - April 27th - 2024

This recording is from our most recent Advances in Pediatrics Symposium, and features members of several AAP-CA2 committee.

SOPT/COEHCC Webinar: Integrating Climate Change Into Pediatric Residency Programs - December 14th 2023

Please join us for a town hall to discuss the creation of a shared national curriculum on climate change for pediatric residencies! We present case examples of how to integrate climate and health topics into residency didactic sessions and institutional structures, as well as how to advocate for climate both in the patient room and in broader settings.

Download Event Slides

Connecting With Nature To Mitigate Toxic Stress Webinar - August 31st - 2023

Thanks for attending “Connecting With Nature To Mitigate Toxic Stress”, on August 31st, 6PM – 7:30PM over Zoom!

This event will be live on the web page soon! Please check back for updates.

Gear Up for Civic Health Month – Why, How, and Act Now – Webinar - July 27th - 2023

Over 300 hospitals, healthcare organizations and civic engagement organizations celebrate Civic Health Month in August. With speakers Gnora Gumanow of the Healthy Democracy Healthy People Initiative as well as Cynthia Romo and Dr Ilan Shapiro of the AltaMed community health network, learn why voting access and civic engagement are so important to our patients’ health and see how a large Southern California clinic network serving 400,000 patients integrates civic engagement year-round.

Click the video above to see a recording of this informative presentation!

Catherine J. Karr, PhD, MD, MS 

Pediatric Symposium Speaking Engagement - 5/20/23 "Healthy Air For Healthy Kids" - With Dr. Catherine J. Karr

  • Pediatrician & air pollution research to practice leader.
  • Researcher investigating climate change, air pollution, and child health linkages.
  • Practitioner with strategies for patient, program and policy approaches to reducing the impacts of air pollution on child health.

    Access Slides Here

April 26, 2023 | AAP California Cross-Chapter Conversation on Climate Change, Child Health, and the Role of the Pediatrician

Climate Change, Child Health, and the Role of the Pediatrician

Check out this AAP-CA Cross-Chapter Chat on Climate Change, Child Health, and the Role of the Pediatrician recorded on Wednesday, April 26. Speakers focused on how climate change impacts child health in California and how to advocate for change within the medical systems and beyond.

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bN8aN-7BYxk9RuKbdW44wrNc9Uuc6JloqmtYgYu7jSg/edit?usp=sharing

April 21, 2022 | Climate Change and Human Migration

Caleb Dresser, MD, MPH

A Conversation with Dr. Caleb Dresser

Caleb Dresser, MD, MPH discusses the implications of climate change and its consequences on migration patterns, and ultimately, the health and safety of children and their families across the world.  Organized by the AAP-CA2 Immigrant Health, and Climate Change Committees.

You may access the slides, here

February 26, 2022 | AAP-CA2 Advances In Pediatrics Symposium

Reshma Shah, MD, MPH

Healthy Plate, Healthy Planet: What Pediatricians Need to Know About Climate, Health, and Food

10:40 AM – 11:20 AM

Dr. Reshma Shah is a board-certified pediatrician, mother, plant-based home-cook, teacher, perpetual student, and co-author of the award-winning book, Nourish: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families. She currently serves as an instructor for Stanford’s Healthy Living Program and oversees the nutrition curriculum for the Stanford University Pediatric Integrative Medicine Fellowship

October 27, 2021 | AAP-CA2 Climate Change Conversation

The AAP-CA Chapter 2 Climate Change Committee held a webinar to discuss climate change and child health on October 27th.  Click the image to watch the recording.

RESOURCES

ABP MOC Part 2 Climate Change and Health Module

The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) launched the first ever maintenance of certification (MOC) module on climate change in June 2021. It is called “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care”. Two pediatricians and American Academy of Pediatrics chapter climate advocates from California, Karina Maher and Lisa Patel, created the ABP MOC Part 2 with the assistance of fellow pediatricians who proofread and piloted the module. The activity contains 20 questions linked to recent, open-source articles and provides continuing education credits. 

This MOC activity aims to educate pediatricians about the health crisis climate change is causing. Children are one of the patient populations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Understanding these health effects will improve the clinician’s ability to counsel, treat, and care for their patients. Learning how climate change does not affect every person equally is an important step towards recognizing that structural racism can determine health outcomes. 
Upon successful completion of the module, you will receive 10 MOC Part 2 points and 6 hours of CME. To find the module, see instructions below. 

How to Access ABP-Developed and ABP-Approved Self-Assessments

  1. Log in to your ABP Portfolio.
  2. Under “Activity Points”, click on the blue “My Activities” button in the MOC section.
  3. Click on the “Self-Assessment (Part 2) Search” button.
  4. Enter “Climate” in the search field to find “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care“

ABP MOC Part 4 Climate Change And Health Module

The Maintenance of Certification Part 4 (Quality Improvement) module “Counseling on Climate Change in Pediatric Primary Care Well-Child Visits” was approved by the American Board of Pediatrics and is available as of June 2023! It is second only to the first ever ABP MOC module (Part 2 Self Assessment) on the health effects of climate change “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care” that was released in June of 2021 (see above). Pediatrics is currently the only specialty that offers board MOC modules on climate change, crucial to taking care of our patients in the present time. The activity was created by faculty colleagues from AAP’s Council on Environmental Health and Climate Change and with support from the Pediatrics Environmental Health Specialty Units.
 
Take advantage of these one of a kind opportunities! The Part 4 module is super creative and embedded into a fun and graphic learning platform. 
 
Use this link to view the description, completion criteria, and contact information to sign up (see screenshot below for where the link should take you; you will need an ABP sign-on). Or, simply contact Nia-Nicole Mitchell (nmitchell@aap.org) from the AAP to enroll. 
 
Participants may enroll as individuals or as a part of a practice or subgroup. Individuals can see their data and work to improve it over time as well as see aggregate data from all users. Individuals in groups may also see their group’s data so that they can work to improve performance together. This is all done automatically through the AAP’s QIDA (Quality Improvement Data Aggregator) tool.

ARTICLES & RESEARCH (By Committee Members)

Integrating Climate Change Education into Board Certification for Pediatricians: a Model for Other Specialties February 2022

LisaPatel, MD, FAAP; Lori G. Byron, MD, FAAP; Karina Maher, MD, FAAP

The 6th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report[1] released this year (2021) states that human influence has unequivocally warmed our planet. Rapid warming drives weather extremes around the planet, such as heatwaves, flooding events, droughts, and wildfires with increasingly disastrous effects on human health. The IPCC report acknowledges that, while certain harms are “locked in”, there is still a window for governments and societies to transition quickly to clean energy economies to protect human health. – Read More

Healthy Planet, Healthy Kids September 2020

The Smoke after the Fires
By Aditi Mhaskar, MD, FAAP, and Priyanka Fernandes, MBBS, MPH
 
Case: You are called to the emergency room to admit a 7-year-old girl for an asthma exacerbation. When you step into the room, you see that she requires oxygen and is having intercostal retractions. Her mom tells you that this is her first ER visit, and her asthma had been well-controlled with a low-dose of inhaled corticosteroids. However, the child had been enjoying the end of the summer by playing outdoors. Both you and her mom know the problem – Read More

Healthy Tomorrows Research Project: Building Healthy Minds in Nature
September 2022

Priyanka Fernandes and Aditi Mhaskar are doing research to assess changes in mental, physical, and environmental health in school aged kids through a curriculum of after school nature programs in South LA parks.  Click here to read more.

CO-CHAIRS

The Climate Change Committee is led by pediatricians Cindy Baker, Priyanka Fernandes, Karina Maher, and Trisha Roth.  As a group, these four climate change advocates co-chair the committee. Please join us to find ways to protect and improve pediatric environmental health through education and advocacy efforts.

Priyanka Fernandes, MD
Karina Maher, MD
Trisha Roth, MD

Please contact us by emailing the Chapter at: chapter2@aapca2.org.