Environmental Health

Although the blog has been primarily dedicated to our 30 Days/30 Clinicians work, we want to make sure you get your Five on Friday fix. We’ve got lots to share this week. Here are the top five reads that MCN staff would like to offer to you:

When a young Latino patient enters your exam room at your rural clinic, do you initiate a conversation on workplace safety?

[Editor’s Note: Happy Birthday, Migrant Clinicians Network! To celebrate our 30th anniversary this month, we are highlighting one clinician each day who has been honored in 30 Clinicians Making a Difference​​​, in which we profile the work of 30 diverse migrant clinicians from across the country and abroad.]

Happy May Day! We at Migrant Clinicians Network provide clinicians with the tools and information to assure that all workers, including migrant workers, can get access to health care. We also engage our clinician base by providing timely news and information through many vehicles, including this blog. So, there’s plenty to celebrate this May Day. Here are the top five for this week.

An estimated 54,000 workers died last year as a result of work-related injuries and illness. That figure, released this week for Workers’ Memorial Day by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, includes the 4,000-plus who died on the job, and the roughly 50,000 who died from long-term exposure to hazardous substances like asbestos and benzene.

This week, Juliana Simmons, MSPH, MCN’s Environmental and Occupational Health Program Manager, met up on the foggy central California coast with Jillian Hopewell, MPA, MA, MCN’s Director of Education and Professional Development. The MCN duo conducted a site visit at Salud Para La Gente, a group of four health clinics in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, which include the fertile Salinas Valley.

Last week, MCN’s Jennie McLaurin, MD, MPH, MA, headed to the Washington State legislature’s Health and Wellbeing Committee to provide testimony on the wide-ranging effects of drift pesticide exposures in rural communities. She was one of several presenters in the educational session, which also featured the Department of Health covering formally-reported incidents, and a farmworker telling her personal account of exposure.

Five on Friday: To bring you into the weekend, we present you with the top five items that MCN staff shared this week, on the many happenings in migrant health and beyond.

Happy Friday! Time for our weekly rundown of interesting pieces of news and more from our team at MCN.

Maps, maps, maps: Ricardo, Health Network Manager, found this new map visualizing the health profile of every county in the US, which notes that “40% of counties are going backwards.”

This week is National Public Health Week, in which we celebrate the work we are doing as public health professionals to better the health and well-being of individuals and communities around the country. And today’s theme, Building Broader Connections, reminds us that we can’t do it alone.