May 11, 2024 • 43 mins
Welcome back to "Talking Environment"! Join host Gevorg Ghazaryan as he sits down with Dr. Marilyn Howarth, a renowned expert in environmental health, for an enlightening discussion about our environmental health. Dr. Howarth shares key highlights from her extensive journey in environmental health, navigating intersections with social justice and emphasizing the importance of community engagement. Explore successful community-driven initiatives and Dr. Howarth's experience developing an environmental justice curriculum empowering students to identify hazards and advocate for change. Delve into innovative adaptation strategies for climate change, collaborative efforts in addressing environmental health challenges, and insights into future directions and emerging threats. Gain valuable knowledge and inspiration from Dr. Howarth's expertise and experiences in safeguarding environmental and public health.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to Talking Environment. I'm your host Gevorg
(00:05):
Ghazaryan. Today we have a very special guest joining with us, Dr. Marilyn
Howarth. Dr. Howarth is a renowned expert in environmental health with a career
ranging from her time as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer to her
current roles in academia and community engagement. So welcome to the show Dr.
(00:26):
Haworth. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Awesome. So why don't we just start
with you just sharing about your journey, what you have done in this role. Yeah so.
Sure. Well I started out as a clinician taking care of patients in occupational
and environmental medicine and although I loved doing that and I really enjoyed
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in particular the toxicology patients, people who were exposed either at
home or on their job to toxicants in our environment. I really wanted to delve
into that in more detail and so my career evolved from being largely a
clinician here at Penn to really working around the engagement of
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communities, regulators, legislators, around policy that impacts environmental
health and really helping people to understand how they can improve their
environmental health. Awesome and could you also please share what do you do now or what
is your role now? What does your day look like? Well my day is varied. I have
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the privilege, I really love it, of being the Deputy Director of the Philadelphia
Regional Center for Children's Environmental Health where we have
programs that we run around environmental health topics and also I do
the community engagement for the Center of Excellence in Environmental
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Toxicology where I really tend to more engage with communities directly and
also regulators, legislators, and healthcare practitioners of all kinds. So
my day may involve writing a policy document or writing something about
education for doctors or for community members, helping community members
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understand a hazardous waste site. Any of any and all of those things could be
included. Awesome that's great, that's great to hear. Exciting days and so for
our listeners I would just ask you to share a little bit for us to know
what is environmental health. I mean most of us can understand it I
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think. It's the health concerning with the environment or what are the causes
from that but I will just ask you to maybe briefly explain to us what is
environmental and why should we be concerned about that. Sure as a physician
I really think about the whole person and all of the aspects of our environment
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that may impact them. So although environmental health sometimes really is
quite narrow in terms of air or water or food, I really think about all of the
ways in which people can be exposed, the routes of exposure through the
respiratory system, through the skin, through ingestion of various items, and
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also the vulnerabilities that people have. Children and the elderly and
pregnant people, all of these are vulnerabilities that change how an
individual may experience the world around them. All of those are aspects of
the way I think of environmental health. Awesome, interesting yeah. Some of these
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topics are maybe we didn't even think about it and they might be they might be
really important for us. I think they are and in today's podcast we will try to
we will a little bit try to explain some of those aspects. We will not cover
everything but I hope we will get to most of it. And before we dive
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into the environmental health, in most of your works you also talked about the
link between the environmental health and the criminal social justice. So could
you also please explain how do you find that link or what is what is the
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similarities between them, how we can link them, or how we can find social
justice in the environmental health? Well the environmental health of populations
that have been subjected to structural racism is a complex mixture of various
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factors that serve to make their environmental health worse than really
anybody else. These are overburdened populations that not only live in places
that where the housing has been systemically under repaired because of
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economic circumstances and social justice issues of redlining, but also
these communities that have lacked investment, economic investment in the
kinds of retail that may be available to community members, the kind of
transportation issues that allow people to get to doctors, that allow them to
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get to their you know good food and other places where they might recreate.
These are the kinds of social connections that really impact
environmental health and I think sort of on top of all of that is the fact that we
know that these overburdened communities from a social injustice way are also
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environmentally overburdened by more hazardous waste sites, more into industry
that pollute the air and the water and the ground and so these populations are
cumulatively more overburdened than others. Yeah that's really important to
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mention and one thing else I wanted to mention about the social justice rights we
have concerning our environmental health. From my research I understand
that most of the most of the concerns that come to our own environmental
health are from outside sources so it might be from fossil fuel companies or
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anything going in our city in our community and it is also it is also our
right to have to have a good environmental health. I don't know if
it's the right way to say it or to have the right to fight for it and about the
fights how I mean your work your work also provides a great expertise of what
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it is of what we can do but let's say let's say just a person who hasn't been
involved in this field but wants to wants to do something about it wants to
do something about their own environmental health. Are there are there
anything any practices or is there anything that people can do that about
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their environmental health taking into account that most of the things
affecting it are from outside sources. That's such a great question. The you
know you you raised a really important point here in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania you said that people have the right to have a clean environment
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and in fact and I'm not a lawyer so the lawyers lawyers listening to this will
know this much better than I am but we have a right in Pennsylvania in our
Constitution which is really from what I understand quite unique. I believe
there's one other state somewhere out west that has this right of all of the
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citizens within the Commonwealth of having the right to a clean environment.
I believe it's something like clean air to breathe pure water to drink and a
good environment in which to enhance our well-being something like that it's not
a quote just definitely paraphrasing but in Pennsylvania there have been some
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case law that apparently has somehow limited that but I know that there are
folks that are trying to get back to the real the primary idea that people should
have a right to an environment that is not impacting their health and so I hope
that those folks in the legal realm are more successful to actually make this
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happen and I think your question really revolves around the idea that so many of
the impacts to our environmental health come from these external sources that
are regulated by the government and how that individuals don't themselves have
direct control over how can we still improve our environment and I'd like to
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answer that in two ways. I think that individuals should not give up their
right to engage with their governments around these issues. There are frequently
opportunities to submit comments to city council members to you here in
Philadelphia to state legislators and to the federal government around policies
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that are being presented. Now I've heard people say that oh you know I don't
really even understand all the implications of that policy it doesn't
matter when I submit testimony and I do frequently there are times when I may
not understand every implication but it doesn't matter because I understand the
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health aspects and so I reserve and confine my comments to those health
aspects. I describe this is how it's affecting me or my patients or the
people in the region where I live and work and that is really valuable
testimony and no single person should ever feel that what they have to say is
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not valuable. In fact I would suggest that there's a lot of good evidence
that policy is only changed when the public speaks out and when they make
their voices heard so this is a good example of where people should make
their voices heard. If they're aware of a polluter in their neighborhood they
should be speaking out about it to someone to someone who has influence on
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on that kind of of an issue but short of doing that there are other things that
people can do in your homes. People can learn about the kinds of things that
impact them at home in their for instance the air. They can decide to not
use spray products for example spray products that hang in the air and
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are irritants and cause asthma and worsening lung conditions. You know
people can make that decision about what products to buy. They can look at the
environmental working groups website and look at their personal care products
and see which ones they may want to avoid that may have more toxic kinds of
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effects on the body. And they're depending on what the nature of the
of the exposure is there there may be any number of other things that they
might do. Awesome great answer I mean I should have taken notes on that and
these are all really important of the ways what we can do. Most of the times
people think that there is nothing we can do. We should just live
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with it we should just go with it but there there is always something that we
can do and it is greatly mentioned that even in the in the policies I mean I'm
not I'm not a lawyer too I'm not and if when we are submitting some comments
some testimonies it is not also we we don't have to read the whole policy to
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know what is it about to submit a professional comment but it is our
basic right to have what we need and just sharing about our health and the
policies that are concerning about our health concerning our health are really
important. So a great answer and also a great some practical daily some tips
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what we can do to improve our environmental health. And we have also
so we are we are going to make a smooth transition to the community aspect as
you as you said there is it is it is important for us for our communities to
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fight for our environmental health and especially in Pennsylvania and I think
everywhere else we still need to fight for it. It is the first time for me
hearing about the Constitution part that we have it in this state. I will look it
up after the podcast but so concerning the concerning the community aspect how
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do you think or are there if if people want to fight for it do is the only way
to do it is by our individual choices or trying to just minimize the impacts that
could make our daily decisions or we should get involved in our communities
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or and try to make something big if we have the time for it what do you think
about it and you have also done the great work in the communities and
community work so I would also like to hear your opinion about it. Well there
are so many great examples in Philadelphia of the kind of collective
action that groups have done to really affect change and and I've had the
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privilege of working with some of these groups. For example the first one that
comes to mind is Eastwick. Southwest Philadelphia is a community that really
has has been in great change over the last 50 years. They started out as a
community that was fairly rural believe it or not. There were there was no
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indoor plumbing, there were a lot of farms and in the 60s there was urban
renewal where a lot of that land was in houses were knocked down for the purpose
of redeveloping and putting up multi-dwelling houses row houses and in
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so doing there also was looking let me start this question. Yeah there are so
many great examples of community action in Philadelphia. The first one I'd like
to talk about is Eastwick. Eastwick is in southwest Philadelphia. Southwest
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Philadelphia used to be quite swampy and in the early or the mid-century of the
last century we didn't view swamps as being very valuable land and so
Philadelphia put all its trash there and over the years they filled in that
swamp such that it no longer was a wetland that could receive a lot of
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water but instead was actually filled in by all this trash. So generally we think
of municipal trash as not being that toxic but unfortunately during this time
of lack of regulation there was a lot of other toxic trash that was put there and
in the mid-60s amidst that trash there were a lot of farmhouses and farms and
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a lack of plumbing and there was this process called urban renewal where the
city came in and bulldozed all the houses that were there and forced out
all the people that were there and then built housing that was row homes largely
and there are a lot of civil justice issues related to that urban renewal
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project that I think is outside of the scope of what we're talking to today but
there are also environmental justice issues there. That municipal
landfill that I talked about where all the Philadelphia trash was with a lot of
other toxic trash added to it that was pushed back and houses, these row
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houses were built on top of it and only after years of the community bringing it
to the attention of the EPA was testing done of the soil and they found that in
fact there were so many toxicants in the soil that it became a superfund site.
And this was it was identified as a superfund site probably after 20 or more
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years of the community organizing, blocking trucks, being there, doing
protests and and really raising this with persistence that it was inspiring
and it really should inspire every other community member that this kind of not
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giving up, this persistence really matters. There were some very
important people in this in this fight. Earl Wilson, Leo Brundage and the East
Wic Friends and Neighbors Coalition and East Wic United. These were community
groups that really brought it to the city and to the federal
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government. And in their fight what ended up happening was the the EPA not only
accepted this as a superfund site but they went in and cleaned it up and it's
now mostly cleaned up. And in this process they identified more than 150
homes with people living in them whose front yards and backyards needed
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to be excavated and that dirt literally put back up on the landfill and clean
land, clean dirt brought in to make those homes protected. So it's that
kind of community organization and perseverance that sometimes is necessary
to have a superfund be identified. That's a great example. It's the first
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time for me hearing about it and it was really interesting to know what kind of
what kind of power we can have as a community fighting for our
environmental rights and fighting to also have a good environmental hope in
the case. So thank you thank you for bringing up that example and I think
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this this also should empower the communities to if they are ongoing
activities that are affecting your environmental rights and future of our
community I think it is important to get involved ask your ask your family
friends ask your family to get involved and we definitely can have can have
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power can have a change if we work together towards that. So thank you thank
you for bringing up that example. And I've also I've also wanted to talk about
mention how how governmental policies are affecting I mean we have talked
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about how they have they have the most let's say effect on the on our
environmental health or all the activities that are going in our
community but except we have talked about how we we can affect the policies
what we can do and how do you think about the policies now or concerning our
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let's say rights about the environmental health of what we can do on how do you
think now if there if there is a support from the government trying to improve
the health maybe it can be through educational projects or any other
community projects that they are trying to do so during your time involved in
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this field have you have you seen the support from them or have you seen like
any tangible impact that they are brought to this field? Well that's a
that's really a big question it really starts out with you know people are
often annoyed with a city and state regulators the EPA the Department of
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Environmental Protection the local local health department for instance but what
people often don't realize is that the only that that those those government
agencies are bound to laws that are on the books and so it is often our
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legislators that need to make changes to allow the agencies to actually do more
for people so let me give you an example the federal government controls a lot of
the regulations around clean air and so even though our Philadelphia AMS is is
the agency that really is doing most of the on-the-ground permitting they really
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have to abide by those federal regulations so our Clean Air Act really
talks about a process by which we use a risk assessment approach and that risk
assessment approach says that industry is allowed to pollute up to a level that
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increases the risk to people to only a certain degree but that risk and those
calculations really consider that industry or that one plant as a single
entity and really doesn't consider the fact that there may be 20 others in the
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immediate vicinity that are similarly polluting and so the permit for one may
look like exactly like the same the permit for another of a similar industry
even and so now you have double and now imagine if you have 20 also being
allowed to admit that same amount that's a lot of emissions and that's exactly
why our cities in particular have an increase in emissions that are allowed I
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will say that most recently the Environmental Protection Agency the EPA
has just proposed regulations that would decrease the amount of emissions that
come from municipal trash incinerators and we've just submitted
comments that actually would support those but I think you know they are
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they're starting to do this and the regulators themselves are interested in
doing it but they every time they put out a set of regulations they have to
have the data the science that actually backs it up because they know full well
that in court they will be challenged because those regulations almost always
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cost industry something and so those costs the industry would prefer not to
bear those costs and so they need to have the good science to show the impact
on health and so there is there is movement and I do think that there's
especially during this latest administration the other very important
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piece of that this last administration the Biden administration has done is
this justice 40 initiative where they have decided that 40% of the dollars
that are being awarded in all of these social justice and environmental justice
programs must go to overburdened communities it is really the first time
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that a metric has been put around the percentage of federal dollars that need
to be spent and I think it's the very first time that we can actually be sure
that there is an allocation of these funds to those communities that need it
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the most and it's really kind of a brilliant plan it doesn't say what what
grants need to go it just says at the end of the day 40% of the money had to
go to these these places that need it Wow and that the money goes there is it
mostly through that you said mostly through grants or government projects or
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do they visit you nonprofits or no this is this is really for all federal grants
that fall into the categories that we talked about earlier that would impact
environmental justice there would be environmental laws of environmental
grants transportation housing lead programs water programs everything that
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really has an impact either directly or indirectly on environmental health
awesome that's great to hear and I think I think it is really important to
especially have funding from the government to work towards these issues
and we have talked about the clean air we recently we also had another podcast
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on clean air with the Clean Air Council executive director here and if you would
like to know more about what we have talked about and how it can affect our
health or what we can do about it you can also go and listen but all the
things that you mentioned about the government support is sometimes we are
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heavily relied on the government support in terms of funding in terms of support
in terms of policies so it is also pretty important and sometimes a key to
trying to solve these issues definitely yes and do you do you think we are we
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are sometimes we are let's say opening up terms some terms in the environmental
hold do you think the overall population has enough of awareness about these
issues or in the it can be through educational programs or through our school
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curriculum do you think they are spoken enough about also taking you to account
that some of the environmental issues are now critical and the climate change
some of the littering some everything going on in our community some of them
are critical from community to community but do you think these issues are spoken
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enough about also take saying that environmental health can have a big
impact on our health and it can have pretty bad consequences you know I think
the most important sort of foundational issue is that our science education in
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this country is not great most school districts don't require a lot of science
in high school they may require one or two courses and those courses aren't
necessarily biology and chemistry the courses that I would view as providing
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the foundational understanding of how biological systems can be affected by
the environment environmental science itself you think would would include
some environmental health and it may but I think understanding how chemicals
change in various environments in various milieus understanding how
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biological systems can be affected those those principles really are more found
in biology and chemistry and so if many of our students in the general
population are not taking those courses then I don't think we can realize we can
believe that they really have those foundational principles and so when we
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think about environmental health literacy that's really the first thing I
think we need to correct or anyone providing education needs to start with
making sure that they begin with an understanding giving people an
understanding of this is the way a particular toxicologic exposure can
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impact an individual this is how it might get into the body this is the
effect it might have on the body and then and then take this the learning
from there so once we overcome that foundation I think it will become easier
than to have the public engage with the kind of dialogue that is often in the
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press which is often in at a higher level it's really one that requires an
understanding or assumes an understanding of you know how chemicals
move through an environment or in and out of people awesome yeah and I was I
was going to maybe draw parallels about two examples of how people can be aware
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of these issues and how people can be aware of their own mental environmental
health so our organization also it is called Marco we have also worked on an
initiative I was also going to ask your opinion on how do you think these kind
of initiatives can help that cause so we all we have this project is called
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macro environmental clubs and we basically work on establishing
environmental clubs especially in schools that are that don't have that
much let's say opportunities and resources around the world that don't
have enough opportunities and resources to know about these issues and that
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might be pretty important for them to know about it and to make make a step
towards it I mean if you don't know about the issue in most of the cases you
you should you don't know so what to do so I think the the solution here can lie
in two options one through the official school curricular changes that the
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schools try to do some changes in the curriculum maybe put mandatory classes
in the environmental field concerning concerning the modern issues that are
arising now and the second one can be through through the works of the
nonprofits or the clubs or student initiatives that are trying to help each
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other to know about these issues and they're trying to get together help each
other out let's say so how do you think what are the benefits of these two
options and how they can help each other maybe well I love the idea of an
environmental club because I think that even though we can push for better
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curriculum we will variably be successful right there what we won't we
won't be successful every time and and so there are places that just can't
include it for resource type resource reasons or or other reasons and I think
when whenever students be are part of a club they really feel that it is
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something that is in the realm of fun and enjoyment and so I think making it
fun and enjoyable and still teaching concepts that they that help them then
engage with this topic is is really the perfect way it also can be pitched to
different levels you can you know do it in high school or really pitch it to
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elementary school students and and really engage them early so I think that
that that really has a lot of benefit and I hope I wish you a great success
with that and if I can help let me know awesome thank you yeah I think I think
it is also a great way to I mean I'm also I'm also I was a student a year ago
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and sometimes it becomes it becomes as a student it becomes a bit sometimes for
the students it becomes boring to hear to all the science related topics and
these kind of clubs these kind of initiatives or the initiatives maybe
from the teachers and the professors to it to trying to bring some fun into it
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and I think it is really important and also trying to maybe engage with the
community do some kind of events yourself and try to understand it better
yeah I think it's is the best way to learn about anything I mean and most
importantly here about the environmental valve yeah we have some great examples
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of I think of engaging with the community and getting them interested so
in Philadelphia and many industrial cities previously industrial cities we
we see a lot of leftover chemicals in the soil and one of those chemicals is
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lead in Philadelphia in particular we have a lot of lead in the soil because we
had we have a very old housing stock and so all of the exterior lead paint has
flaked off and literally stays in the soil because it's it really isn't water
soluble it doesn't really get moved away so it really stays there so if you have
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a hundred year old house every seven years or ten years the paint flakes and
you need to repaint it so imagine every seven years worth of paint literally
crumbling in the soil and still being there and on top of that we have had
more lead smelters in Philadelphia than any other city in the country and lead
smelters contaminated the ground immediately around them and so we had
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many and so we contaminated that way and then also we have always had vehicles in
Philadelphia we've always had roads we had the first highway in Pennsylvania
we had the first highway in the country in Pennsylvania and so we've had a lot
of vehicles so when there was lead in the gasoline lots of lead came out of
the gasoline emissions and landed in the soil so for many reasons we have a lot
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of lead in our soil and lead in Philadelphia is a very important
environmental health topic not not so much because it's in the soil but because
we have a poor population with an aging housing stock and that poor population
is making the decision about whether they will use their money for food and
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medicine or repaint their homes and in every case people will feed their family
and take care of them rather than repaint their homes and so we know that
there's a lot of lead poisoning in children in Philadelphia we have high
rates of lead poisoning and so we've used the soil people are very interested
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gardening they're very interested in finding out if their soil has lead in it
so we have held events around the city and engaged people around soil testing
and while we're testing their soil we talk with them about all of the other
sources of lead that are in our view more important and more likely to
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impact their health but really using that as an opportunity to engage them
and it's really worked we think quite well because people are often surprised
about all of the sources of lead from their lead in the solder and service
lines coming into their house lead in the paint and the dust and how their
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children can be affected by it and that they should actually have their one and
two year olds tested for lead routinely if they live in Philadelphia in fact
that is the law we help to pass that law requiring one and two year olds to get
blood lead tests oh yeah that's that's an interesting practical example of how it
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affects our health and what we need to do also yeah that's that's great to hear
and so before before finishing up I also wanted to hear your opinion on the
future of environmental health what do you think what do you think it looks
like I mean in many countries in many places in many cities there there are
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many new policies concerning this and there is there is a positive shift
probably to it people are getting to be more concerned about this trying to take
some actions what do you think the future looks like and what we can what
we can do maybe to help this feature be better well I think we have to really
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attack it from many different angles and I think the education one is an
important one but but there are other things that I think we need to do there
are very real environmental health impacts on people right now that are
that will lead to cancer that will worsen their asthma that will give them
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heart disease and we really need to attack those right now and one good
example in the United States of how that's being done is the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has recently funded a number
of centers we have one here at Penn it's a collaborative center between the
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University of Pennsylvania Perlman School of Medicine and Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia called the Philadelphia Regional Center for
Children's Environmental Health and we're one of these six centers funded by the
NIEHS to put in place the environmental health knowledge that we have gained to
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actually come up with translational program to really make a difference and
so one of those programs is one that we're doing in Chester where we are
engaging with families with children that have asthma and really taking a
360 degree look at their environment what are the things within the home that
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we can change that will help them with their asthma what are the other
environments that they find themselves in at school at a care center at their
grandparents house what are those things that we can change that will help them
with their asthma and so that's just one example but there are a number of other
things that are really translational there are things that we can put in
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place now and I think that's really important to do that kind of action I
also think that there's a role for technology and I know a number of
centers at Penn that are really engaging in the technology that we need to use in
order to improve environmental health technology that will help us do more
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sustainable energy development more sustainable products and and recycle
recycling and decreasing the number of chemicals that we end up putting into
the into the our environment that is really a crit that innovative
technology is really essential but I think a combination of factors is really
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what's essential in order for us to improve environmental health both now
and as we move forward awesome thank you thank you for sharing us the importance
of it and the future looks like and some of the initiatives that are that the
government or the educational institutions are bringing up so so we
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are gonna wrap up and thank you thank you so much for sharing your expertise
and for this great discussion and I've learned I've learned myself a lot too
about the policies about what might affect our environmental health and I
might even rewatch this to make sure I have some notes of maybe what I can do
(42:39):
but thank you so much for all the insights and your your sharing your
expertise with us it has been a great conversation so thank you so much for
joining us today well thanks for talking with me it's been really been a pleasure
awesome so that's all and to all of our listeners thank you for listening to
(42:59):
another episode of talking environment stay informed stay engaged and together
let's work for a healthier and more sustainable future until next time take
care thank you
Hello everyone and welcome back to Talking Environment. I'm your host Gevorg
(00:05):
Ghazaryan. Today we have a very special guest joining with us, Dr. Marilyn
Howarth. Dr. Howarth is a renowned expert in environmental health with a career
ranging from her time as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer to her
current roles in academia and community engagement. So welcome to the show Dr.
(00:26):
Haworth. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Awesome. So why don't we just start
with you just sharing about your journey, what you have done in this role. Yeah so.
Sure. Well I started out as a clinician taking care of patients in occupational
and environmental medicine and although I loved doing that and I really enjoyed
(00:50):
in particular the toxicology patients, people who were exposed either at
home or on their job to toxicants in our environment. I really wanted to delve
into that in more detail and so my career evolved from being largely a
clinician here at Penn to really working around the engagement of
(01:14):
communities, regulators, legislators, around policy that impacts environmental
health and really helping people to understand how they can improve their
environmental health. Awesome and could you also please share what do you do now or what
is your role now? What does your day look like? Well my day is varied. I have
(01:39):
the privilege, I really love it, of being the Deputy Director of the Philadelphia
Regional Center for Children's Environmental Health where we have
programs that we run around environmental health topics and also I do
the community engagement for the Center of Excellence in Environmental
(02:00):
Toxicology where I really tend to more engage with communities directly and
also regulators, legislators, and healthcare practitioners of all kinds. So
my day may involve writing a policy document or writing something about
education for doctors or for community members, helping community members
(02:23):
understand a hazardous waste site. Any of any and all of those things could be
included. Awesome that's great, that's great to hear. Exciting days and so for
our listeners I would just ask you to share a little bit for us to know
what is environmental health. I mean most of us can understand it I
(02:47):
think. It's the health concerning with the environment or what are the causes
from that but I will just ask you to maybe briefly explain to us what is
environmental and why should we be concerned about that. Sure as a physician
I really think about the whole person and all of the aspects of our environment
(03:11):
that may impact them. So although environmental health sometimes really is
quite narrow in terms of air or water or food, I really think about all of the
ways in which people can be exposed, the routes of exposure through the
respiratory system, through the skin, through ingestion of various items, and
(03:34):
also the vulnerabilities that people have. Children and the elderly and
pregnant people, all of these are vulnerabilities that change how an
individual may experience the world around them. All of those are aspects of
the way I think of environmental health. Awesome, interesting yeah. Some of these
(03:55):
topics are maybe we didn't even think about it and they might be they might be
really important for us. I think they are and in today's podcast we will try to
we will a little bit try to explain some of those aspects. We will not cover
everything but I hope we will get to most of it. And before we dive
(04:19):
into the environmental health, in most of your works you also talked about the
link between the environmental health and the criminal social justice. So could
you also please explain how do you find that link or what is what is the
(04:40):
similarities between them, how we can link them, or how we can find social
justice in the environmental health? Well the environmental health of populations
that have been subjected to structural racism is a complex mixture of various
(05:02):
factors that serve to make their environmental health worse than really
anybody else. These are overburdened populations that not only live in places
that where the housing has been systemically under repaired because of
(05:22):
economic circumstances and social justice issues of redlining, but also
these communities that have lacked investment, economic investment in the
kinds of retail that may be available to community members, the kind of
transportation issues that allow people to get to doctors, that allow them to
(05:45):
get to their you know good food and other places where they might recreate.
These are the kinds of social connections that really impact
environmental health and I think sort of on top of all of that is the fact that we
know that these overburdened communities from a social injustice way are also
(06:10):
environmentally overburdened by more hazardous waste sites, more into industry
that pollute the air and the water and the ground and so these populations are
cumulatively more overburdened than others. Yeah that's really important to
(06:31):
mention and one thing else I wanted to mention about the social justice rights we
have concerning our environmental health. From my research I understand
that most of the most of the concerns that come to our own environmental
health are from outside sources so it might be from fossil fuel companies or
(06:54):
anything going in our city in our community and it is also it is also our
right to have to have a good environmental health. I don't know if
it's the right way to say it or to have the right to fight for it and about the
fights how I mean your work your work also provides a great expertise of what
(07:20):
it is of what we can do but let's say let's say just a person who hasn't been
involved in this field but wants to wants to do something about it wants to
do something about their own environmental health. Are there are there
anything any practices or is there anything that people can do that about
(07:42):
their environmental health taking into account that most of the things
affecting it are from outside sources. That's such a great question. The you
know you you raised a really important point here in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania you said that people have the right to have a clean environment
(08:04):
and in fact and I'm not a lawyer so the lawyers lawyers listening to this will
know this much better than I am but we have a right in Pennsylvania in our
Constitution which is really from what I understand quite unique. I believe
there's one other state somewhere out west that has this right of all of the
(08:24):
citizens within the Commonwealth of having the right to a clean environment.
I believe it's something like clean air to breathe pure water to drink and a
good environment in which to enhance our well-being something like that it's not
a quote just definitely paraphrasing but in Pennsylvania there have been some
(08:48):
case law that apparently has somehow limited that but I know that there are
folks that are trying to get back to the real the primary idea that people should
have a right to an environment that is not impacting their health and so I hope
that those folks in the legal realm are more successful to actually make this
(09:12):
happen and I think your question really revolves around the idea that so many of
the impacts to our environmental health come from these external sources that
are regulated by the government and how that individuals don't themselves have
direct control over how can we still improve our environment and I'd like to
(09:38):
answer that in two ways. I think that individuals should not give up their
right to engage with their governments around these issues. There are frequently
opportunities to submit comments to city council members to you here in
Philadelphia to state legislators and to the federal government around policies
(10:02):
that are being presented. Now I've heard people say that oh you know I don't
really even understand all the implications of that policy it doesn't
matter when I submit testimony and I do frequently there are times when I may
not understand every implication but it doesn't matter because I understand the
(10:23):
health aspects and so I reserve and confine my comments to those health
aspects. I describe this is how it's affecting me or my patients or the
people in the region where I live and work and that is really valuable
testimony and no single person should ever feel that what they have to say is
(10:45):
not valuable. In fact I would suggest that there's a lot of good evidence
that policy is only changed when the public speaks out and when they make
their voices heard so this is a good example of where people should make
their voices heard. If they're aware of a polluter in their neighborhood they
should be speaking out about it to someone to someone who has influence on
(11:09):
on that kind of of an issue but short of doing that there are other things that
people can do in your homes. People can learn about the kinds of things that
impact them at home in their for instance the air. They can decide to not
use spray products for example spray products that hang in the air and
(11:35):
are irritants and cause asthma and worsening lung conditions. You know
people can make that decision about what products to buy. They can look at the
environmental working groups website and look at their personal care products
and see which ones they may want to avoid that may have more toxic kinds of
(11:59):
effects on the body. And they're depending on what the nature of the
of the exposure is there there may be any number of other things that they
might do. Awesome great answer I mean I should have taken notes on that and
these are all really important of the ways what we can do. Most of the times
people think that there is nothing we can do. We should just live
(12:24):
with it we should just go with it but there there is always something that we
can do and it is greatly mentioned that even in the in the policies I mean I'm
not I'm not a lawyer too I'm not and if when we are submitting some comments
some testimonies it is not also we we don't have to read the whole policy to
(12:45):
know what is it about to submit a professional comment but it is our
basic right to have what we need and just sharing about our health and the
policies that are concerning about our health concerning our health are really
important. So a great answer and also a great some practical daily some tips
(13:08):
what we can do to improve our environmental health. And we have also
so we are we are going to make a smooth transition to the community aspect as
you as you said there is it is it is important for us for our communities to
(13:28):
fight for our environmental health and especially in Pennsylvania and I think
everywhere else we still need to fight for it. It is the first time for me
hearing about the Constitution part that we have it in this state. I will look it
up after the podcast but so concerning the concerning the community aspect how
(13:53):
do you think or are there if if people want to fight for it do is the only way
to do it is by our individual choices or trying to just minimize the impacts that
could make our daily decisions or we should get involved in our communities
(14:14):
or and try to make something big if we have the time for it what do you think
about it and you have also done the great work in the communities and
community work so I would also like to hear your opinion about it. Well there
are so many great examples in Philadelphia of the kind of collective
action that groups have done to really affect change and and I've had the
(14:41):
privilege of working with some of these groups. For example the first one that
comes to mind is Eastwick. Southwest Philadelphia is a community that really
has has been in great change over the last 50 years. They started out as a
community that was fairly rural believe it or not. There were there was no
(15:06):
indoor plumbing, there were a lot of farms and in the 60s there was urban
renewal where a lot of that land was in houses were knocked down for the purpose
of redeveloping and putting up multi-dwelling houses row houses and in
(15:28):
so doing there also was looking let me start this question. Yeah there are so
many great examples of community action in Philadelphia. The first one I'd like
to talk about is Eastwick. Eastwick is in southwest Philadelphia. Southwest
(15:50):
Philadelphia used to be quite swampy and in the early or the mid-century of the
last century we didn't view swamps as being very valuable land and so
Philadelphia put all its trash there and over the years they filled in that
swamp such that it no longer was a wetland that could receive a lot of
(16:14):
water but instead was actually filled in by all this trash. So generally we think
of municipal trash as not being that toxic but unfortunately during this time
of lack of regulation there was a lot of other toxic trash that was put there and
in the mid-60s amidst that trash there were a lot of farmhouses and farms and
(16:38):
a lack of plumbing and there was this process called urban renewal where the
city came in and bulldozed all the houses that were there and forced out
all the people that were there and then built housing that was row homes largely
and there are a lot of civil justice issues related to that urban renewal
(17:01):
project that I think is outside of the scope of what we're talking to today but
there are also environmental justice issues there. That municipal
landfill that I talked about where all the Philadelphia trash was with a lot of
other toxic trash added to it that was pushed back and houses, these row
(17:25):
houses were built on top of it and only after years of the community bringing it
to the attention of the EPA was testing done of the soil and they found that in
fact there were so many toxicants in the soil that it became a superfund site.
And this was it was identified as a superfund site probably after 20 or more
(17:51):
years of the community organizing, blocking trucks, being there, doing
protests and and really raising this with persistence that it was inspiring
and it really should inspire every other community member that this kind of not
(18:12):
giving up, this persistence really matters. There were some very
important people in this in this fight. Earl Wilson, Leo Brundage and the East
Wic Friends and Neighbors Coalition and East Wic United. These were community
groups that really brought it to the city and to the federal
(18:33):
government. And in their fight what ended up happening was the the EPA not only
accepted this as a superfund site but they went in and cleaned it up and it's
now mostly cleaned up. And in this process they identified more than 150
homes with people living in them whose front yards and backyards needed
(18:56):
to be excavated and that dirt literally put back up on the landfill and clean
land, clean dirt brought in to make those homes protected. So it's that
kind of community organization and perseverance that sometimes is necessary
to have a superfund be identified. That's a great example. It's the first
(19:21):
time for me hearing about it and it was really interesting to know what kind of
what kind of power we can have as a community fighting for our
environmental rights and fighting to also have a good environmental hope in
the case. So thank you thank you for bringing up that example and I think
(19:43):
this this also should empower the communities to if they are ongoing
activities that are affecting your environmental rights and future of our
community I think it is important to get involved ask your ask your family
friends ask your family to get involved and we definitely can have can have
(20:08):
power can have a change if we work together towards that. So thank you thank
you for bringing up that example. And I've also I've also wanted to talk about
mention how how governmental policies are affecting I mean we have talked
(20:32):
about how they have they have the most let's say effect on the on our
environmental health or all the activities that are going in our
community but except we have talked about how we we can affect the policies
what we can do and how do you think about the policies now or concerning our
(21:00):
let's say rights about the environmental health of what we can do on how do you
think now if there if there is a support from the government trying to improve
the health maybe it can be through educational projects or any other
community projects that they are trying to do so during your time involved in
(21:24):
this field have you have you seen the support from them or have you seen like
any tangible impact that they are brought to this field? Well that's a
that's really a big question it really starts out with you know people are
often annoyed with a city and state regulators the EPA the Department of
(21:48):
Environmental Protection the local local health department for instance but what
people often don't realize is that the only that that those those government
agencies are bound to laws that are on the books and so it is often our
(22:13):
legislators that need to make changes to allow the agencies to actually do more
for people so let me give you an example the federal government controls a lot of
the regulations around clean air and so even though our Philadelphia AMS is is
the agency that really is doing most of the on-the-ground permitting they really
(22:38):
have to abide by those federal regulations so our Clean Air Act really
talks about a process by which we use a risk assessment approach and that risk
assessment approach says that industry is allowed to pollute up to a level that
(23:01):
increases the risk to people to only a certain degree but that risk and those
calculations really consider that industry or that one plant as a single
entity and really doesn't consider the fact that there may be 20 others in the
(23:22):
immediate vicinity that are similarly polluting and so the permit for one may
look like exactly like the same the permit for another of a similar industry
even and so now you have double and now imagine if you have 20 also being
allowed to admit that same amount that's a lot of emissions and that's exactly
why our cities in particular have an increase in emissions that are allowed I
(23:49):
will say that most recently the Environmental Protection Agency the EPA
has just proposed regulations that would decrease the amount of emissions that
come from municipal trash incinerators and we've just submitted
comments that actually would support those but I think you know they are
(24:13):
they're starting to do this and the regulators themselves are interested in
doing it but they every time they put out a set of regulations they have to
have the data the science that actually backs it up because they know full well
that in court they will be challenged because those regulations almost always
(24:34):
cost industry something and so those costs the industry would prefer not to
bear those costs and so they need to have the good science to show the impact
on health and so there is there is movement and I do think that there's
especially during this latest administration the other very important
(24:55):
piece of that this last administration the Biden administration has done is
this justice 40 initiative where they have decided that 40% of the dollars
that are being awarded in all of these social justice and environmental justice
programs must go to overburdened communities it is really the first time
(25:19):
that a metric has been put around the percentage of federal dollars that need
to be spent and I think it's the very first time that we can actually be sure
that there is an allocation of these funds to those communities that need it
(25:41):
the most and it's really kind of a brilliant plan it doesn't say what what
grants need to go it just says at the end of the day 40% of the money had to
go to these these places that need it Wow and that the money goes there is it
mostly through that you said mostly through grants or government projects or
(26:03):
do they visit you nonprofits or no this is this is really for all federal grants
that fall into the categories that we talked about earlier that would impact
environmental justice there would be environmental laws of environmental
grants transportation housing lead programs water programs everything that
(26:28):
really has an impact either directly or indirectly on environmental health
awesome that's great to hear and I think I think it is really important to
especially have funding from the government to work towards these issues
and we have talked about the clean air we recently we also had another podcast
(26:51):
on clean air with the Clean Air Council executive director here and if you would
like to know more about what we have talked about and how it can affect our
health or what we can do about it you can also go and listen but all the
things that you mentioned about the government support is sometimes we are
(27:14):
heavily relied on the government support in terms of funding in terms of support
in terms of policies so it is also pretty important and sometimes a key to
trying to solve these issues definitely yes and do you do you think we are we
(27:37):
are sometimes we are let's say opening up terms some terms in the environmental
hold do you think the overall population has enough of awareness about these
issues or in the it can be through educational programs or through our school
(27:58):
curriculum do you think they are spoken enough about also taking you to account
that some of the environmental issues are now critical and the climate change
some of the littering some everything going on in our community some of them
are critical from community to community but do you think these issues are spoken
(28:23):
enough about also take saying that environmental health can have a big
impact on our health and it can have pretty bad consequences you know I think
the most important sort of foundational issue is that our science education in
(28:45):
this country is not great most school districts don't require a lot of science
in high school they may require one or two courses and those courses aren't
necessarily biology and chemistry the courses that I would view as providing
(29:08):
the foundational understanding of how biological systems can be affected by
the environment environmental science itself you think would would include
some environmental health and it may but I think understanding how chemicals
change in various environments in various milieus understanding how
(29:32):
biological systems can be affected those those principles really are more found
in biology and chemistry and so if many of our students in the general
population are not taking those courses then I don't think we can realize we can
believe that they really have those foundational principles and so when we
(29:55):
think about environmental health literacy that's really the first thing I
think we need to correct or anyone providing education needs to start with
making sure that they begin with an understanding giving people an
understanding of this is the way a particular toxicologic exposure can
(30:17):
impact an individual this is how it might get into the body this is the
effect it might have on the body and then and then take this the learning
from there so once we overcome that foundation I think it will become easier
than to have the public engage with the kind of dialogue that is often in the
(30:39):
press which is often in at a higher level it's really one that requires an
understanding or assumes an understanding of you know how chemicals
move through an environment or in and out of people awesome yeah and I was I
was going to maybe draw parallels about two examples of how people can be aware
(31:02):
of these issues and how people can be aware of their own mental environmental
health so our organization also it is called Marco we have also worked on an
initiative I was also going to ask your opinion on how do you think these kind
of initiatives can help that cause so we all we have this project is called
(31:28):
macro environmental clubs and we basically work on establishing
environmental clubs especially in schools that are that don't have that
much let's say opportunities and resources around the world that don't
have enough opportunities and resources to know about these issues and that
(31:49):
might be pretty important for them to know about it and to make make a step
towards it I mean if you don't know about the issue in most of the cases you
you should you don't know so what to do so I think the the solution here can lie
in two options one through the official school curricular changes that the
(32:15):
schools try to do some changes in the curriculum maybe put mandatory classes
in the environmental field concerning concerning the modern issues that are
arising now and the second one can be through through the works of the
nonprofits or the clubs or student initiatives that are trying to help each
(32:40):
other to know about these issues and they're trying to get together help each
other out let's say so how do you think what are the benefits of these two
options and how they can help each other maybe well I love the idea of an
environmental club because I think that even though we can push for better
(33:02):
curriculum we will variably be successful right there what we won't we
won't be successful every time and and so there are places that just can't
include it for resource type resource reasons or or other reasons and I think
when whenever students be are part of a club they really feel that it is
(33:26):
something that is in the realm of fun and enjoyment and so I think making it
fun and enjoyable and still teaching concepts that they that help them then
engage with this topic is is really the perfect way it also can be pitched to
different levels you can you know do it in high school or really pitch it to
(33:48):
elementary school students and and really engage them early so I think that
that that really has a lot of benefit and I hope I wish you a great success
with that and if I can help let me know awesome thank you yeah I think I think
it is also a great way to I mean I'm also I'm also I was a student a year ago
(34:10):
and sometimes it becomes it becomes as a student it becomes a bit sometimes for
the students it becomes boring to hear to all the science related topics and
these kind of clubs these kind of initiatives or the initiatives maybe
from the teachers and the professors to it to trying to bring some fun into it
(34:34):
and I think it is really important and also trying to maybe engage with the
community do some kind of events yourself and try to understand it better
yeah I think it's is the best way to learn about anything I mean and most
importantly here about the environmental valve yeah we have some great examples
(34:56):
of I think of engaging with the community and getting them interested so
in Philadelphia and many industrial cities previously industrial cities we
we see a lot of leftover chemicals in the soil and one of those chemicals is
(35:16):
lead in Philadelphia in particular we have a lot of lead in the soil because we
had we have a very old housing stock and so all of the exterior lead paint has
flaked off and literally stays in the soil because it's it really isn't water
soluble it doesn't really get moved away so it really stays there so if you have
(35:38):
a hundred year old house every seven years or ten years the paint flakes and
you need to repaint it so imagine every seven years worth of paint literally
crumbling in the soil and still being there and on top of that we have had
more lead smelters in Philadelphia than any other city in the country and lead
smelters contaminated the ground immediately around them and so we had
(36:02):
many and so we contaminated that way and then also we have always had vehicles in
Philadelphia we've always had roads we had the first highway in Pennsylvania
we had the first highway in the country in Pennsylvania and so we've had a lot
of vehicles so when there was lead in the gasoline lots of lead came out of
the gasoline emissions and landed in the soil so for many reasons we have a lot
(36:25):
of lead in our soil and lead in Philadelphia is a very important
environmental health topic not not so much because it's in the soil but because
we have a poor population with an aging housing stock and that poor population
is making the decision about whether they will use their money for food and
(36:48):
medicine or repaint their homes and in every case people will feed their family
and take care of them rather than repaint their homes and so we know that
there's a lot of lead poisoning in children in Philadelphia we have high
rates of lead poisoning and so we've used the soil people are very interested
(37:10):
gardening they're very interested in finding out if their soil has lead in it
so we have held events around the city and engaged people around soil testing
and while we're testing their soil we talk with them about all of the other
sources of lead that are in our view more important and more likely to
(37:34):
impact their health but really using that as an opportunity to engage them
and it's really worked we think quite well because people are often surprised
about all of the sources of lead from their lead in the solder and service
lines coming into their house lead in the paint and the dust and how their
(37:55):
children can be affected by it and that they should actually have their one and
two year olds tested for lead routinely if they live in Philadelphia in fact
that is the law we help to pass that law requiring one and two year olds to get
blood lead tests oh yeah that's that's an interesting practical example of how it
(38:18):
affects our health and what we need to do also yeah that's that's great to hear
and so before before finishing up I also wanted to hear your opinion on the
future of environmental health what do you think what do you think it looks
like I mean in many countries in many places in many cities there there are
(38:43):
many new policies concerning this and there is there is a positive shift
probably to it people are getting to be more concerned about this trying to take
some actions what do you think the future looks like and what we can what
we can do maybe to help this feature be better well I think we have to really
(39:10):
attack it from many different angles and I think the education one is an
important one but but there are other things that I think we need to do there
are very real environmental health impacts on people right now that are
that will lead to cancer that will worsen their asthma that will give them
(39:32):
heart disease and we really need to attack those right now and one good
example in the United States of how that's being done is the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has recently funded a number
of centers we have one here at Penn it's a collaborative center between the
(39:54):
University of Pennsylvania Perlman School of Medicine and Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia called the Philadelphia Regional Center for
Children's Environmental Health and we're one of these six centers funded by the
NIEHS to put in place the environmental health knowledge that we have gained to
(40:14):
actually come up with translational program to really make a difference and
so one of those programs is one that we're doing in Chester where we are
engaging with families with children that have asthma and really taking a
360 degree look at their environment what are the things within the home that
(40:36):
we can change that will help them with their asthma what are the other
environments that they find themselves in at school at a care center at their
grandparents house what are those things that we can change that will help them
with their asthma and so that's just one example but there are a number of other
things that are really translational there are things that we can put in
(41:01):
place now and I think that's really important to do that kind of action I
also think that there's a role for technology and I know a number of
centers at Penn that are really engaging in the technology that we need to use in
order to improve environmental health technology that will help us do more
(41:27):
sustainable energy development more sustainable products and and recycle
recycling and decreasing the number of chemicals that we end up putting into
the into the our environment that is really a crit that innovative
technology is really essential but I think a combination of factors is really
(41:53):
what's essential in order for us to improve environmental health both now
and as we move forward awesome thank you thank you for sharing us the importance
of it and the future looks like and some of the initiatives that are that the
government or the educational institutions are bringing up so so we
(42:16):
are gonna wrap up and thank you thank you so much for sharing your expertise
and for this great discussion and I've learned I've learned myself a lot too
about the policies about what might affect our environmental health and I
might even rewatch this to make sure I have some notes of maybe what I can do
(42:39):
but thank you so much for all the insights and your your sharing your
expertise with us it has been a great conversation so thank you so much for
joining us today well thanks for talking with me it's been really been a pleasure
awesome so that's all and to all of our listeners thank you for listening to
(42:59):
another episode of talking environment stay informed stay engaged and together
let's work for a healthier and more sustainable future until next time take
care thank you
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