Environmental Health

Submit comments to the Environmental Protection Agency about its move to ban chlorpyrifos today -- the comment period ends tomorrow, January 5th!

This year was a very busy one for MCN’s Environmental and Occupational Health team. Our hard-working Maryland office completed a number of projects and initiated some ambitious new ones, to keep workers safe on the job and assist health centers in identifying and reporting occupational injuries and exposures. Here are just five of the Environmental and Occupational Health team’s successful projects in 2015.

At MCN offices across the country, we’re bundling up to keep the December chill out. Our thoughts quickly turn to those who live in homes that can’t keep the wind out -- and to those who don’t have homes at all. As clinicians, we know that such circumstances affect health. This week’s Five on Friday showcases the wide range of concerns we have, and how many circumstances affect the health of underserved populations, from the taste of TB medication to access to clean air and wild places. 

Mayra Melendez was seven years old when she moved with her family to Salisbury, Maryland from Lima, Peru in 2001. “My dad came here with an H1B visa, through an employer,” Melendez recalled.

We’re feeling very grateful for the wonderfully vibrant and dedicated community of migrant clinicians that we serve. Thank you for your hard work in the fight for health justice for the mobile poor! Our successes rely on your dedication to serving mobile populations around the country and beyond.

So, before we pull out the stuffing and gravy, we at MCN wanted to share an incredible year of successes in the world of migrant health. Here are our 2015 Health Justice Highlights, in the year so far:

We’ve had another very busy week at MCN. Here are some updates from the world of public health and health justice that we thought you’d enjoy, chosen by MCN staff members.

1. Claire, Writer and Editor: Tomorrow is World Diabetes Day, where we work to make healthy eating a right, not a privilege. Check out the World Diabetes Day website for more. 

This week, I joined Ricardo Garay, MCN’s Health Network Manager, and Theressa Lyons, MCN’s Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator, to represent MCN at the Midwest Stream Farmworker Health Forum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The annual Midwest Stream Forum, along with the East Coast Migrant Stream Forum and the Western Forum for Migrant and Community Health, bring clinicians together to discuss health issues at the forefront of migrant health.

Our fall issue of Streamline, our quarterly clinical publication, is hot off the presses! Download the new issue and view dozens of back issues here. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the content, in this video abstract produced by Tiffy Daud, our Graphic Designer. 

On Tuesday, MCN’s Juliana Simmons, MSPH, CHES, Environmental and Occupational Health Program Manager, attended a meeting hosted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, Maryland Chapter and the Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility.

A presentation on the chronic effects of pediatric pesticide exposures by professor James Roberts, MD, MPH, FAAP was the highlight of the evening. Dr. Roberts is based at the Medical University of South Carolina and is a clinician partner of MCN.

MCN’s Amy Liebman, MPA, MA, Director of Environmental and Occupational Health, attended the 143rd American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Chicago. Yesterday, Liebman presented “Policy exclusions and unequal protection for vulnerable workers.