The Environment Section invites abstracts and full session proposals supporting the theme of the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting & Exposition. Please consider the conference theme as you build your abstract submission.

Deadlines

Full Session Proposals 

Due: March 31, 2026

Successful Full Session Proposal Applicants Notified: on or about June 2, 2026 

Individual Contributed Abstracts (Hard Deadlines set by APHA) 

Due: March 31, 2026 

Email notification of abstract status sent: on or about June 2, 2026  

Presenter and Presentation Requirements 

Presenters

All persons making a presentation at the Annual Meeting & Exposition must pay a registration fee in order to participate in the program. All persons presenting an abstract must be an individual member of APHA during the time of the meeting. APHA does not pay an honoraria or expenses to any presenter.

Presentations

Presentations may NOT be submitted to multiple Sections, SPIGs, Caucuses, or Forums and may be presented only once during the Annual Meeting & Expo. The presentation may NOT be presented or published prior to the APHA Annual Meeting. However, it is acceptable for students having abstracts accepted to finish MPH, MS, PhD or DrPH projects in partial satisfaction of degree requirements by May-June or August-September before the Annual Meeting.

Descriptions of Session Formats

Oral Session:  90-minute session with 4-5 presentations, each 15–25 minutes in length.

Panel Discussion: 90-minute session comprised of 4-5 panelists discussing a specific topic or set of closely related topics, each 15–20 minutes in length.

Lightning Round: 90-minute session comprised of 10 panelists discussing a specific topic or set of closely related topics, each 5 minutes in length.

Roundtable Session: 90-minute session with a set of “round tables” where each table has a different presenter/moderator. NOTE: Audiovisual equipment (e.g., computer, LCD projector, etc.) is not available during roundtable sessions.

Poster Session: Sets of 10 posters organized and presented together within a 60-minute session.

Descriptions of Session Types

Research Presentations

Abstracts describing scientific research projects should focus on new knowledge of environmental public health issues. The abstract and presentation should include the background  of the study, a hypothesis or study question, detailed methods, results, and specific conclusions.

Policy or Program Presentations

Policy or program (aka public health in practice) abstracts, should describe the application of knowledge (including community knowledge) to real-world problems or policies. The abstract and presentation should include a description of the problem, assessment of the policy or program, description of methods or approach, and outcomes and/or resolution of the problem. We welcome submissions from community-based organizations.

Topics of Interest

Submit Abstracts and Full Session proposals describing research studies or innovative policies or programs addressing a global or local environmental public health problem. While all abstracts reflecting innovative work related to  environmental public health topics will be considered, the Environment Section places an emphasis on abstracts related to the following topics:

• Air, Water, Land, Climate, and Health
  Examples: air quality, ambient air pollution, industrial emissions, water quality and waterborne disease, access to safe drinking water, pharmaceuticals in drinking water, microbial risk assessment, including infectious and noninfectious agents, recreational waters, climate change and health, preparedness, Superfund sites, offshore oil drilling impacts, waste storage and processing, vulnerabilities in exposure to pollutants.
• Building Healthy and Resilient Communities
  Examples: built environment, indoor air quality, healthy homes, relationships between health and urban infrastructure, urbanization and sprawl, sustainability, health effects of noise exposure, mobility/access, resource systems (food, energy, goods, etc.), impacts of energy use and public health, transportation, local environmental health impacts.
• Children's Environmental Health (organized jointly with the Maternal and Child Health section)
  Examples: fetal origins of chronic diseases, environmental risks at home and at school or daycare, environmental health risks with disproportionate impacts on children, disparate impacts of exposure, epigenetic change and contribution to obesity, interaction between environmental and maternal/child health, artificial intelligence and children’s health.
• Emerging Fields in Environmental Health
  Examples: community mobilization around AI data centers and environmental justice, AI data center environmental impacts (energy, water, and methane), bio-and cybersecurity, emerging infectious diseases and the environment, nature and health, etc.
• Environmental Epidemiology
  Examples: biomonitoring, environmental health tracking, health impact assessment, cumulative risk assessment
• Environmental Health Policy and Practice
  Examples: risk communication, environmental health literacy, Health in All Policies, community development, regulation and enforcement, AI data center policy and impact.
• Environmental Justice and Health Equity
  Examples: environmental-justice focused community-based participatory research, research and policy highlighting community members as experts, influence of social, economic, or cultural factors on environmental health risks; exposure, impact, or policy inequities; disparities in access to environmental resources and infrastructure; programs that have demonstrated success in improving environmental public health literacy in under represented communities, fostering leadership, workforce development, and/or use of lay community health workers for environmental education and mobilization and citizen science; AI data centers.
• Food and the Environment (organized jointly with the Food and Nutrition section)
  Examples: food system environmental impacts and threats, sustainable food production, food and farm policy and economics, food justice, food contamination in production and distribution, food systems local to global, food waste, health disparities in the food environment/food chain, food agriculture and climate change, obesity and environmental health.
• Persisting in the Face of Adversity
  Examples: environmental justice and advocacy organizations, community programs, data preservation, and research that found ways to persist despite political and funding challenges.
• Physical Activity and Environment (organized jointly with the Physical Activity section)
  Examples: environment and physical activity in parks, trails, fitness centers, schools and pedestrian sidewalks.
• Plastics, Chemicals, and Health
  Examples: emerging health exposures and outcomes associated with plastic polymers and plastic additives (including persistent bioaccumulative toxicants and endocrine disruptors), microplastics as novel entities including exposures in food and environmental media, biomonitoring, environmental impacts of plastic production including climate change, chemical risk assessments, chemical policy and regulation, epigenetics, nanoparticles, green chemistry and green products, including green-washing.

Full Session Proposals

Deadline: March 31, 2026 (uploaded by 11:59 PM PST)  

Please link to the instructions for submitting a Full Session Proposal here. Please read carefully, as the full session proposal submission process has changed this year.

Proposals for Full Sessions are welcome. Full Sessions are comprised of 4-5 speakers who will address different aspects of the same topic of high interest (preference will be given to proposals that include 5 speakers). 

To submit a proposal, you must: 

○ Request the Full Session Proposal Form from the Program Planners by emailing all program planners at rebeccalarson2@gmail.com; rjohnson@habitablefuture.org;  Saswati.Upadhyay@uth.tmc.edu 

○ Submit individual abstracts included in the panel to the APHA/Confex system by selecting "START SESSION SUBMISSION".

○ Complete all specified steps and click “SUBMIT ABSTRACT” 

○ Ensure the abstract is 300 words or less 

○ Submit by 11:59 PM (PST) on March 31, 2026

○ Complete the Full Session Proposal Form; and 

○ Return the completed Full Session Proposal Form to the Program Planners at: rlarson@augusta.edu, rjohnson@habitablefuture.org, and saswati.upadhyay@uth.timc.edu BEFORE 11:59 PM (PST), March 31, 2026.   

All Full Session Proposals will be peer-reviewed and ranked for problem description, originality or urgency, importance to the field of environmental health, objectives, methodology or approach, results or outcomes, and reviewer perception of presentation potential. Please review the Evaluation Criteria (below). 

Applicants will be notified of the status of their proposal by June 2, 2026. . 

If the Full Session Proposal is not accepted, individual abstracts included in panel sessions submitted to the APHA/Confex system by March 31, 2026 will be considered for inclusion in other sessions.  

Individual Abstracts

Deadline: March 31, 2026 (uploaded by 11:59 PM PST)  

Individual abstracts are welcome. Program Planners will combine accepted individual abstracts into 90-minute oral sessions (4-5 individual abstracts of 15-20 minutes) or 60-minute poster presentations (10 individual abstracts). Please state your preferred format: oral presentation only, oral presentation preferred, poster presentation only, or no preference . 

To submit your abstract, you must: 

○ Submit online via APHA/Confex website; start by selecting "START ABSTRACT SUBMISSION".

○ Complete all specified steps and click “SUBMIT ABSTRACT” 

○ Ensure the abstract is 300 words or less 

○ Submit by 11:59 PM (PST) on March 31, 2026  

All abstracts will be peer-reviewed and ranked for problem description, originality or urgency, importance to the field of environmental health, objectives, methodology or approach, results or outcomes, and reviewer perception of presentation potential. Please review the Evaluation Criteria (below). Every effort will be made to accommodate the author’s presentation preference for accepted abstracts (e.g., oral presentation or poster). However, the Environment Section may not be able to accommodate all presentation preferences.   

Evaluation Criteria

Both Individual Abstracts and Full Session Proposals will be evaluated by the same abstract criteria. The criteria are broad to allow for the evaluation of science, policy, and public health practice proposals.

They are:

1) Importance to environmental health

2) Originality or urgency of the work

3) Problem description

4) Defined objectives/purpose of the study, policy, or program

5) Sound methodology or approach

6) Reasonable results, outcome, and/or conclusions, and

7) Overall reviewer perception of presentation potential .   

Crafting Learning Objectives

Please note that learning objectives are required for each submitted abstract. Applicants are required to list at least one MEASURABLE objective. Learning objectives should be written from the vantage point of the participant; what applicable knowledge the participant will learn from the presentation. (See examples below).  

Continuing Education Credit

APHA values the ability to provide continuing education credit to physicians, nurses, health educators, veterinarians, and those certified in public health at its annual meeting. Please complete all required information when submitting an abstract so members can claim credit for attending your session. These credits are necessary for members to keep their licenses and credentials. 

For a session to be eligible for Continuing Education Credit, each presenter must provide: 

• An abstract free of trade and/or commercial product names 
• At least one MEASURABLE outcome (DO NOT USE “To understand” or “To learn” as objectives, they are not measurable). Examples of Acceptable Measurable Action Words:  Explain, Demonstrate, Analyze, Formulate, Discuss, Compare, Differentiate, Describe, Name, Assess, Evaluate, Identify, Design, Define or List. 
• A signed Conflict of Interest (Disclosure) form with a relevant Qualification Statement. See an example of an acceptable Qualification Statement on the online Disclosure form.  

Contact Kyriakos.Iliadis@apha.org if you have any questions concerning continuing education credit. Please contact the program planner for all other questions.

Program Planner Contact Information:

Rebecca Larson, DrPH, MS, MA, RD 

rebeccalarson2@gmail.com 

Ryan Johnson, MS, CPH

rjohnson@habitablefuture.org 

Saswati Upadhyay, MBBS, MPH

Saswati.Upadhyay@uth.tmc.edu 

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Ready?

Program Planner Contact Information:

Saswati Upadhyay, MBBS, MPH
Saswati.Upadhyay@uth.tmc.edu


and

Ryan Johnson, MS, CPH
rjohnson@habitablefuture.org


and

Becky Larson,
rlarson@augusta.edu