Oral

Over the past decade, the Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability (PHES), situated within the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Environmental Health Section, has expanded the boundaries of environmental health practice to address issues of environmental and social justice. PHES staff address key environmental, economic, and social health determinants including access to clean drinking water, affordable and healthy food, health and safety for low-income and immigrant workers, neighborhood infrastructure, and transportation planning. Program activities include applied research, collaboration, policy development, and advocacy impacting the health of residents and workers across the lifespan. This session is targeted towards informing professionals interested in developing similar efforts in their jurisdiction. The session will provide a PHES program overview, including its mission and working principles which have enabled it to be an effective local government change agent. The principles, shared across the disparate issue areas, include: making policy change that supports health; providing health data and evidence; engaging in collective problem-solving in interdisciplinary collaborations; responding to stakeholder concerns; and a commitment to equity. The introduction will also highlight challenges to expanding the scope of environmental health practice and strategies to overcoming such barriers. Oral presentations in four issue areas will highlight these five working principles in case studies of innovative local population health strategies that advance equity and sustainability, including: • PHES collaboration with the local school district and the public drinking water supplier to ensure access to drinking water in public schools; • PHES work to ensure low-income residents can use Electronic Benefits Transfer cards at local Farmer’s Markets; • PHES coordination with worker centers and labor enforcement agency to document working conditions of low-income and immigrant workers, improve health and safety, recover unpaid wages, and prevent wage theft; • PHES leadership on a Citywide Pedestrian Safety Task Force to focus engineering and enforcement resources on areas with the highest injuries, often also low-income communities dependent on walking for transportation.

Session Objectives: 1. Describe four strategic approaches to expanding the purview of environmental health practice to addressing emerging and existing social and environmental justice issues. 2. Identify key components of successful interdisciplinary, collaborative environmental health initiatives. 3. Discuss barriers to advancing cross-sectoral environmental health programs – and approaches to overcoming those barriers. 4. Identify a range of health supportive policy change targets in institutional sectors responsible for water, food, working conditions, planning, housing, and transportation.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)