Week 7: System Level Interventions, Legislation, & Policy & Environmental Health
Legislation Discussion:
1. Identify a bill in your state House or State. Give the bill number and the chief author of the bill.
2. Brief description of the bill.
3. Identify the personal or professional interest that you have in this bill and state the reason why you would or would not encourage your representative to support this bill.
4. What could you do to advocate for this position?
Local Environmental Health Issue Discussion:
1. Using one of the following resources, identify a public health issue in your community. I encourage you to use one of the first 3 resources but if you need to you can use online resources.
- Interview with local official
- Local newspaper article
- Contact the local environmental group
- Online resources or others you may find.
2. Identify the county and state in which you live.
3. What are current local efforts being undertaken to address this issue?
4. Citing course resources, what is the significance of the role of public health nursing in environmental issues? Identify a public health nursing intervention that could be taken locally to address this particular concern (refer to MDH Intervention Wheel).
5. What Healthy People 2030 objective/goal would be addressed with this intervention?
When responding to your peers, compare your community with their community and give a suggestion of another public health nursing intervention that could be taken or identify an agency (other than public health) that could assist the community in addressing the issue.
Climate Change:
1. Identify a recent (within the past 5 years) national or global environmental health outcome that occurred due to climate change.
2. What were the potential/actual causes of climate change that contributed to this environmental health outcome?
3. What were the consequences of climate change on health, the environment, and/or the way we live? Give specific/actual examples related to your specific environmental health outcome.
4. What role may public health nurses take to address the needs of individuals and families at the time of your specified environmental health concern?
5. What are 2 specific actions/roles public health nurses can take to mitigate the long-term impact of climate change on health, healthcare, and/or the environment? What organizations may public health nurses join or collaborate with to address future environmental concerns related to climate change?