Oral

There is a need for health professionals to understand environmental health hazards within their communities and be able to diagnose, treat, and prevent resultant health conditions in their patients, especially children. Unfortunately, health professionals are often not fully equipped with the knowledge to respond to this need. This session will provide several examples of new materials and tools for training healthcare providers about children’s environmental health issues, from on-line training, printed materials, extensive train-the-trainer methods, and comprehensive post-training testing and evaluation. We will explore efforts in the United States and in several international settings, with an aim to increasing understanding of children’s environmental health issues in unique settings and to provide myriad perspectives on the politics of children’s environmental health issues, including an exploration of why children, and particularly socio-economically disadvantaged children, are often touted as a “valuable resource” yet largely ignored in environmental and health policy settings. The session will explore the need to increase societal understanding of the connections between environmental policy and health outcomes by focusing on ways to communicate to families and caregivers how exposures to certain toxicants may result in illness and diseases for children, and by exploring the tools families can use to further advocate for increased protections for children. The session will address the immediate and long-term training needs of pediatricians and nurses and community advocates as well as discuss the settings in which that training might prove most effective, be it in homes, during well-child visits, on-line, in medical and nursing schools.

Session Objectives: 1. Learn about many new tools and strategies for increasing healthcare provider understanding of children's environmental health issues. 2. Appreciate the complex policy and public health issues inherent in children' environmental health, including the role of environmental justice, socio-economic disparities in exposures and health effects, domestic and international perspectives, and the need for increased societal intelligence regarding the environment's role in health.

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing