“Climate Change and Health: Innovative Solutions to Act On”
Human health and the health of our planet are inextricably linked and they can be mutually beneficial. However, our planet’s health and our health are at risk. Climate change represents one of the most pressing issues of our time, affecting every nation and person. In this talk, I will focus on the ways in which climate change impacts human health and discuss approaches to quantify and mitigate these impacts at the local, state, national, and global levels. I will review cases in which groups have successfully monitored, measured, and analyzed climate change associated data relevant to human health. You will discuss the role of policy makers, community leaders, and community members who are addressing climate change impacts on human health. The overarching goal of the talk is to critically discuss the health outcomes of energy production and climate change impacts on food, water, air, soil, food systems, and e-waste through the lens of social justice and health equity.
About Dr. Nadeau
Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, is the Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health. She practices Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology in children and adults. She has published over 400+ papers, many in the field of climate change and health, and allergies and asthma. For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and epigenetic factors affect the risk of developing immune dysfunction. Her laboratory has been studying exposomics and solutions-facing research with policy-oriented outcomes to track climate change mitigation and adaptation as these solutions pertain to quantifying health outcomes. Dr. Nadeau started 4 biotech companies, works in climate and health inequity, co started a sustainability seed grant program, and works with the WHO and UN on several projects in global health. She works with the Salata Institute at Harvard and oversees the Harvard Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment.
Dr. Nadeau earned her MD/PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1995, completing her doctoral work in biochemistry and immunology, followed by a pediatric residency, and fellowship in Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Program, joined the Stanford faculty where she was the Naddisy Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics until 2022, and then joined Harvard where she is now the John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies.