Summer 2021 Climate Change and Health Internship Colloquium

October 21, 2021

Information

YCCCH's Summer 2021 Climate and Health Internship Colloquium featured panel discussions with Yale students who participated in internships aimed at addressing climate change and public health issues.

Speakers:

Weixi Wu (Yale School of Public Health)
Erika-ann Kim (Yale School of Public Health)
Rebecca Gillman (Yale School of Public Health)
Adriana Ballinger (Yale College - Environmental Studies)
Caroline Erickson (Yale College - Environmental Studies)
Natalie Henning (Yale School of Public Health)
Nora Massie (Yale College - Environmental Studies)
Ian Reilly (Yale School of Public Health)
Gwen Oliver (Yale School of Public Health)
Max Teirstein (Yale College - Environmental Studies)
Trinidad Kechkian (Yale School of the Environment)
Katie Schlick (Yale College - Environmental Studies)

ID7060

To CiteDCA Citation Guide

00:01<v ->Welcome everyone</v>
00:02to the Summer 2021 Climate and Health Internship Colloquium.
00:07We're so glad to have this great group together,
00:11and we have a packed agenda from our fantastic students.
00:17First, I'll just take a minute
00:20to tell you that we're recording,
00:22and that this will be available afterwards,
00:24and especially to give a welcome to preceptors who are here,
00:28who hosted our students over the summer.
00:36A couple of session rules.
00:38Please place yourself on mute
00:39while the panelists are presenting.
00:41You can enter your questions into the chat box.
00:44There will be a Q&A session at the end.
00:53Our agenda is a quick introduction to our center,
00:57and then we have three panels, and then the Q&A session.
01:01So first I'll just tell you,
01:02the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health
01:05is a center that's based
01:06at the Yale School of Public Health.
01:08We work through research education on public health practice
01:13to effect and address the health impacts of climate change,
01:19as well as identify the health co-benefits of climate action
01:23and push for addressing climate change, which we consider
01:27to be perhaps the greatest public health threat
01:29of the 21st century.
01:32We sponsored this internship program,
01:34and we also have a new concentration
01:37in climate change and health that I want
01:38to especially make first year MPH students aware of.
01:41So MPH students from any of the departments
01:44are eligible to apply.
01:47So you would add it on top of your department.
01:49You'll be getting more information in mid-October.
01:53So about the application process,
01:55it's quite straightforward.
01:58And we have a number of the current concentration students
02:03as part of this internship cohort.
02:07With that, we're gonna turn to our first panel.
02:10So this is climate and health on an international scale,
02:13and we have three students
02:16who are kind of stepping up to the virtual podium.
02:18Weixi Wu, Erika-ann Kim, and Rebecca Gillman.
02:23So each student will give a kind of a very quick
02:26couple of minutes summary
02:28of their project and their organization,
02:30and then we'll shift to a panel discussion.
02:35So first, we have Weixi.
02:38<v ->Hi everyone.</v>
02:39So you guys can hear me okay?
02:42Okay, good.
02:44Hi everyone. I'm Weixi.
02:45I'm a joint-master degree student
02:47from the Department of Environmental Health Sciences
02:50and School of Public Health,
02:52and master of environment science in School of Environment.
02:55I'm on the concentration in global health,
02:58but I'm working as a student associate coordinator
03:01in Center on Climate Change and Health.
03:04So in the past summer,
03:05I worked with on Dejusticia Climate Change Litigation
03:09to identify the interlinkages between climate change,
03:12air quality, and human health
03:14from the human rights perspective.
03:17As shown on my presentation slide,
03:19Dejusticia is a Columbia-based research
03:22and advocacy organization that uses law
03:25to promote social justice and human rights in Columbia
03:27and the Global South.
03:30Columbia is at high risk for climate change impacts.
03:33In urban areas, people are suffering water shortages
03:36and land instability, and the rise in temperature
03:39and changes in rainfall patterns
03:41can also have an impact on respiratory,
03:44cardiovascular, and waterborne diseases.
03:47And apart from urban areas,
03:49climate change has become a threat
03:51to Columbia's rich biodiversity.
03:53Equal says the natural resources depletion
03:56and violates the basic human rights
03:58of indigenous populations to a healthy environment.
04:02In Colombian legal system,
04:04individuals are allowed to bring claims before local courts
04:07against the government, public entities, or private sectors
04:12for not complying with national laws
04:14or international obligations
04:16related to climate change matters.
04:18So during this internship,
04:20we analyzed the legal channels and different case studies,
04:24both in Colombia and in other countries,
04:27and we're still in the process
04:28of completing the literature review.
04:32And for Columbia, the preliminary result we got
04:36from the internship is, for Columbia,
04:38it is necessary to continue adopting preventative measures
04:42to anticipate further climate change impacts
04:46since up to now, all this measures they have taken,
04:49it's not sufficient to tackle this problem in the country.
04:54<v ->Yeah. Great.</v>
04:55Thank you, Weixi.
04:58Next is Erika.
05:02<v ->Hi. Thank you.</v>
05:03Thank you, Dr. Bozzi, and also thank you to everyone else
05:05at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health
05:07for organizing this and as usual, just doing amazing work.
05:11Hi everyone. My name is Erika.
05:13I am a second year MPH student
05:14at Yale School of Public Health
05:16in the Chronic Disease Epidemiology Department,
05:19and I'm also getting a concentration
05:21in climate change and health.
05:23So this past summer, I interned
05:25for the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Network or ECHORN.
05:28My preceptor was Dr. Saria Hassan
05:30from Emory Rollins School of Public Health,
05:33and I worked on a qualitative study
05:36that aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability
05:39of WHO NCD kids that are meant to be implemented
05:44after natural disasters in the Caribbean.
05:47And although the summer is over,
05:50I'm continuing to work on this project.
05:53We are actually still working on collecting more data
05:56and putting together a manuscript of our findings,
05:59which is really exciting.
06:01And so a little bit about how this project pertains
06:04to comment you need help,
06:05I mean, it's extremely pertinent to this field for one,
06:08the Caribbean is a region
06:10that's especially prone to natural disasters,
06:12which will continue to get worse in severity
06:15due to climate change,
06:17and which is a huge public health threat.
06:18I'm not sure we all know.
06:20And second, in the past, a lot of emphasis has been put
06:23on addressing more immediate
06:26health consequences of disasters,
06:29such as like injuries that occur or trauma that occurs
06:32after disaster hits or maybe like diseases that come about
06:38from the immediate impact of like a disaster,
06:42but there are other health consequences
06:44that play out in the longer term
06:46such as complications from noncommunicable diseases
06:49and also mental health outcomes.
06:52And these long-term consequences are responsible
06:55for a significant percentage of disaster-related mortality.
06:58And so a strength of our project
07:01is that we are helping to fill the gaps
07:03in understanding of what the experiences
07:06of people living with noncommunicable diseases are
07:08during and following disasters.
07:11Thank you.
07:13<v ->Great. Thanks, Erika.</v>
07:17Next is Rebecca.
07:20<v ->Hello everyone.</v>
07:21Can you all hear me okay?
07:23Cool.
07:24Very cool work that everyone's doing.
07:28Very nice to meet everyone.
07:29I am a second-year MPH candidate
07:32at the Yale School of Public Health.
07:33I'm studying health policy
07:35with a concentration in climate change and health.
07:38This past summer, I worked with the NGO EarthMedic.
07:41I'm gonna give a bit of background about the NGO
07:44just 'cause it will make sense in context, I promise.
07:47So the NGO is very, very new.
07:50It was founded officially in April, 2020,
07:53which as you guys can imagine
07:55from a public health perspective,
07:56not a great time really to be starting anything,
07:58certainly not public health projects,
08:00but onward they go.
08:03So basically going into this internship,
08:07they didn't really have the capacity
08:09and still don't really have the capacity
08:11to do any of the work that they want to do.
08:14So it's sort of like,
08:16so I guess that's all to say my internship really focused
08:20on seeing what possible opportunities they had
08:25for participation in order for them
08:27to put their very limited resources to best use possible.
08:32So in particular, the director, the CEO,
08:36Dr. Hospitalist was really interested
08:38in looking at how climate NGOs like EarthMedic like others
08:43could possibly get involved in UN initiatives
08:46as one possible way of influencing decisions
08:52and making sure that everything is more sustainable
08:54and more climate-oriented.
08:56So the final product that we ended up coming up with
08:58is this project presentation here
09:00that will be presented actually in a couple of weeks,
09:05that's a little terrifying,
09:05at Yale's Climate Change and Health
09:08in Small Island Developing States conference,
09:11and the presentation title is there,
09:13but I will just read it.
09:14Climate and Health Initiatives
09:16in Small Island Developing States
09:18Overview and Potential of NGO Participation
09:20in UN Processes.
09:22So essentially, I did a giant literature view all summer,
09:27but it's all very interesting to me
09:28'cause it very much relates to what I want to go into.
09:31I'm very much interested in going
09:32into environmental law and policy
09:35and really looking at the types
09:37of enforcement mechanisms that are possible.
09:40How can we really force all of these promises
09:43that these governments are making to actually go green?
09:47How can we actually make them follow through
09:49with these promises, 'cause they're great promises,
09:52but they're not really happening?
09:54So anyway, all this to say,
09:56I know my time's up, I'm sorry.
09:58It was a very interesting internship,
10:00and I was very glad that I was able
10:01to kind of mesh it with my future career goals.
10:06<v ->Great.</v>
10:07Yes, and good plug for the conference that's coming up.
10:10Hope folks can attend, if they are available.
10:17Great, so I'm just gonna go back to this
10:20and welcome all the participants back
10:23for some discussion questions.
10:24So one thing I'm interested in,
10:27I think almost everyone was virtual,
10:30but some were virtual in a place that they knew.
10:33You were virtual with an international organization,
10:37perhaps a place that you'd never been.
10:39So tell me a little bit
10:41about how did you learn about that place
10:45and about that particular context in order to do this work.
10:49Were there some strategies
10:50or particular maybe things that you learned along the way
10:53that were helpful to give context to your research?
11:00Anyone can jump in.
11:06<v ->Yeah.</v>
11:07So for me, I've never been to Columbia,
11:11and I did my internship virtually.
11:16And before starting the internship,
11:19I had to write a research proposal.
11:22So I looked up a lot of studies and papers
11:27that they conducted in Columbia,
11:32and then I think it really helped me a lot
11:36to understand the situations in Columbia,
11:40and also because I have no law background
11:44or any litigation background.
11:47And I did also research, a lot of legal documents,
11:53and then like the legal system in Columbia
11:56to give myself a context,
11:59like what Columbia legal system is like.
12:03Yeah, so it's mainly through reading.
12:05And then also like my preceptors from NGO
12:09also helped me a lot and answered a lot of my questions,
12:12and they also connected me with as many professors
12:16in universities in Columbia,
12:18and then they're also very helpful
12:20in answering all my questions, yeah.
12:23<v Laura>Okay.</v>
12:28<v ->Yeah, I can also kind of talk to this.</v>
12:32I found my internship, in general, really transformative
12:37in building my understanding of climate change and health
12:42in the Caribbean, and so like in the region
12:44that this project is based in.
12:47When I first applied for this internship last winter,
12:51I came into the position
12:53with like three kind of scattered interests,
12:56one in noncommunicable disease, two in climate change,
12:59and three, I had like a small existing interest
13:03in small island states
13:05because I was born and raised and educated up until college
13:10on an island myself, but I'm from the Pacific,
13:12not from the Caribbean.
13:13And so these projects seem really fitting.
13:16And now that I've been working on it for all this time,
13:19what's was something I guess I didn't really see coming
13:21and I have really learned along the way
13:23is that through our qualitative findings,
13:28there are some very interesting similarities to me, I think,
13:31between the health problems
13:34that people in small island states face
13:38due to climate change,
13:40and going forward, it's part of my intellectual agenda
13:43to kind of bridge how islands across the globe
13:48kind of have similarities,
13:49as different and diverse as they are in this problem
13:52that climate change poses
13:54and the health implications of that,
13:55and then creating solutions that maybe work for everyone.
14:00<v Laura>Okay.</v>
14:03<v ->I would say mine is sort of a mixture</v>
14:05of both Weixi and Erika's answers.
14:08EarthMedic is based in Trinidad as its main headquarters,
14:12but the entire project
14:13was just about very general UN, Caribbean, NGO processes.
14:18So a lot of it, very similar to Weixi,
14:21was very much just reading,
14:22asking lots of questions to my preceptor.
14:26My preceptor, Natasha, is just super wonderful.
14:29She's really well-educated and was definitely able
14:32to fill in the gaps knowledge that I didn't have.
14:34So I think that at least from a professional perspective,
14:37we definitely complemented each other well,
14:39'cause I come more from the public health perspective of it
14:42and was kind of almost thinking of things
14:44like a research paper almost.
14:47And she would say, "Oh, well, yes, yes, this and yes,
14:50like these things are very cool,
14:51but like from a legal perspective
14:53and like I have actually done the work
14:55and I've done these things,
14:56like you actually don't have unlimited time.
14:58For example, like you have to actually stick to the schedule
15:01and like kind of more refine the research
15:03in order to like get the finished product at the end
15:06that's actually feasible within that time period."
15:08So getting that experience was definitely how I learned
15:13about the area is kind of being able
15:16to go to someone to be like, hey, focus.
15:18Like you need to actually just look at this one thing.
15:20So that was really helpful.
15:22<v ->Hmm. Great.</v>
15:23I mean, it's interesting to see to it for all.
15:26I think particularly, then Weixi and Rebecca,
15:28you were taking your public health skillset,
15:32and then applying it to a really different context
15:34of this kind of policy or legal context.
15:36And Erika, maybe yours was a little bit more
15:39within sort of public health, but like very applied
15:44into what are we going to do with this knowledge.
15:47So I'm glad that you were able
15:48to have that experience in your internship.
15:50I'm curious also about the partners
15:53and stakeholders that were engaged in your project.
15:57What did that engagement look like, and what was the...
16:02Maybe tell us some of the benefits
16:04of stakeholder engagement in your projects,
16:11or limitations.
16:15<v ->Yeah, so the partners and stakeholders</v>
16:21engaged with the work was Dejusticia,
16:26the government and local communities
16:30and some private sectors.
16:35So because I'm in the environmental justice team,
16:41and then my preceptor is...
16:43I have two preceptors.
16:45One, she's a lawyer,
16:48and the other one, she's a political scientist.
16:52So they work mostly with other lawyers
16:57and also with people from the Colombian legal system,
17:04and I'm working more with like university professors
17:12in getting the data and getting
17:15like understanding their research
17:20and kind of like translating and collecting them
17:24and then translating into practice.
17:28Yeah, so yeah.
17:31So I didn't get to work too much with the government
17:35is also because I wasn't in the country at that time,
17:38and also not too much with the local communities.
17:43Me myself, I just, yeah,
17:45I connected mostly with the university professors, yeah.
17:56<v ->I can go next.</v>
17:57So for our project,
18:01well, I was tasked with basically analyzing the transcripts
18:05of a number of interviews
18:08conducted with various stakeholders in the Caribbean region.
18:11So these were all interviews held
18:15with public health stakeholders,
18:19disaster response stakeholders,
18:20people who worked for like ministries of health in Barbados
18:25and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and places like that,
18:27and also people who are living
18:30with non-communicable diseases and kind of talking
18:32about their experiences during disasters,
18:34managing their health conditions.
18:38I think maybe like a limitation of my project
18:42was that I came onto the project
18:44after interviews were conducted.
18:46And so like, it was my job to just analyze the data.
18:49However, we're still collecting data,
18:51and I hope to maybe hold some interviews myself soon.
18:55So that's really exciting, but yeah.
18:59But I still think I benefited
19:00from just being able to analyze this data
19:04and like seeing the responses
19:07that the stakeholders are giving
19:09and sharing their experiences.
19:10Like I think there's a massive strength in just seeing it,
19:14even though it's just on paper
19:15and not holding the interview myself.
19:21<v ->So because my internship was so unique</v>
19:24in that it still doesn't really have a set structure,
19:28the task that I originally had started with,
19:31and this is relevant because I was also hired
19:35as an associate with the NGO, which I'm very excited about,
19:38but so that meant that my internship project
19:42kind of changed halfway through the semester,
19:44which was totally okay.
19:45But the original task that I was given
19:47was to basically create a taxonomy
19:52and like list of all of the rules
19:55and rules of procedure in different NGOs,
20:00or no, sorry for NGOs
20:02for how they could participate in different UN processes.
20:06And that can be the big ones,
20:09like mWHO or even like some
20:12of the smaller subsidiary organs.
20:14But basically, this document does not exist.
20:19Like there's no such thing as a big list
20:22of like all of the ways that the NGOs,
20:25especially like climate NGOs
20:27could get involved in UN processes.
20:29So my particular internship
20:33didn't have stakeholder involvement because it couldn't.
20:37It was really just literature review
20:39and reading a lot of legal documents
20:42and putting a lot of lists together
20:45and making sure that all of the words
20:49and facts that I was pulling are correct,
20:53'cause that's all very important,
20:54because I wouldn't want to put something
20:56in this big document would be like, actually, no.
20:58You actually can't go vote in these meetings.
21:01Like that's actually not okay.
21:02Like you need to be able to actually make those differences
21:06'cause there's a nuance to that.
21:07So it was interesting,
21:09but did not really have any stakeholder involvement.
21:13<v ->Great.</v>
21:14With just a minute and a half to go in the session,
21:20just any last reflections,
21:21especially on this comparative perspective.
21:23You're now kind of centered back in the US.
21:27Do you see differences in how climate change
21:29and climate change in health are treated
21:33in the country where you were virtually working
21:36compared to here?
21:40<v ->It's definitely a more imminent threat</v>
21:42in Trinidad and Tobago,
21:44and we think that those island countries
21:45that definitely are experiencing
21:47the more immediate effects of climate change,
21:49sea level rise, extreme heat, all of those things,
21:52definitely more of an immediate threat
21:54and definitely puts in perspective how privileged we are
21:58to not necessarily be living in an area
22:01that is that imminently close to really bad harm.
22:16<v ->Weixi.</v> <v ->Oh.</v>
22:18Oh, I was going to say, for me, it was, for example,
22:23in Columbia, like the coach can make a decision,
22:29but then the effectiveness of the decision
22:32remains the problem.
22:34It really it's limited by administrative difficulties
22:39of the respondent authorities
22:42and also lack of governance in some regions,
22:47and also there is some continuing armed conflict
22:51or just like some like crime,
22:56high rates of crime in certain regions,
22:59and also illegal money activities
23:01and also some wastewater treatment,
23:05all kinds of different problems
23:08is kind of limiting the effectiveness
23:11of the decision that the court makes.
23:14So yeah.
23:15So I think it's quite complicated and difficult in Columbia.
23:22<v ->Thanks. Erika.</v>
23:26<v ->Yeah, I would really just second everything</v>
23:29that Rebecca said.
23:30I mean, we did our internships in similar regions.
23:32So I'm really just seconding everything that she said,
23:36and yeah, the area that I did my internship in
23:43is so much more prone
23:44to really like immediate severe threats of climate change,
23:48and I think there's just, because of that,
23:52there's a bit of frustration in terms of policy action
23:56or just any kind of action
23:58in order to either mitigate or adapt to these effects,
24:03and I don't have like a solution or anything to present.
24:06It's just something that we should really be,
24:09there needs to be a really concerted effort,
24:11I think, globally, to tackle this issue.
24:14But I'm sure I'm just preaching to the choir by saying that.
24:18<v ->It's always good to have the reminder.</v>
24:21Great.
24:22Thank you so much, Rebecca, Erika, Weixi.
24:24Great job.
24:26We're gonna shift over now to our next panel
24:32on communicating climate and health issues.
24:36We have Caroline Erickson, Natalie Henning,
24:39Nora Massie, Ian Reilly, and Adriana Ballenger.
24:48<v ->Caroline</v> <v ->Hi everyone.</v>
24:49Yeah. Hi.
24:50I'm really excited
24:51to be kicking off this section of the talk.
24:54So I'm Caroline.
24:55I'm a senior in Yale College,
24:57majoring in environmental studies,
24:59concentrating in human health and the environment,
25:01and I'm also in the five-year BA BS MPH program.
25:07So I was really fortunate this summer
25:09that I joined my project right at its beginning,
25:13and this was kind of an idea
25:15that the health department decided to address
25:19just because they found essentially a gap in the knowledge
25:23of what they were finding, what they were reading,
25:26the research that was coming out, and what residents
25:29of like shoreline communities were believing.
25:32So despite all the great research,
25:34people are still in Connecticut,
25:36especially along the shoreline,
25:38a little hesitant to believe the science.
25:41So we wanted to develop a project
25:44that addressed this in a way that was a little less scary
25:49than just jumping head first into a bunch of literature.
25:53So the main goal of this project
25:55was to interview people in the community,
25:59get their human stories with climate change,
26:02and then disseminate that into the wider public
26:05to kind of show people
26:07that this is not necessarily something
26:10that is super out of touch, but it is right now
26:12and it is affecting our community presently, but yeah.
26:17So we spent a lot of time interviewing
26:19towards the end of the project
26:20or towards the end of the summer.
26:22We started having communication or talks with BCTV,
26:25which is our local like television station
26:28to hopefully get this information out there
26:31a little bit more, and this project is still going on.
26:35So we're still running interviews
26:37and kind of collecting data in that sense
26:39and working to disseminate it.
26:41But yeah, this is a super exciting project
26:43and I had a great time this summer.
26:45So thank you.
26:47<v ->Thanks, Caroline. Natalie.</v>
26:52<v ->Awesome. Hi, thank you, Laura.</v>
26:54And again, thank you to the center
26:56for putting this together.
26:57It's so great to hear
26:58what everyone else was working on the summer.
27:01But high out, so I'm Natalie,
27:03I'm a second year in the MPH program
27:06in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology
27:09and concentrating in data modeling.
27:11I interned with Montana Health Professionals
27:14for a Healthy Climate this summer.
27:16They're a very small non-profit organization,
27:19and their team is led by doctors, Laurie and Rob Brian,
27:23who unfortunately, I don't think are here,
27:25but they're completely phenomenal and inspiring
27:28and are doing so so much to move the needle in their state,
27:33and I could go on and on about them.
27:35But their organization's mission and their goal
27:38is really to use the voice of health professionals
27:41in the state to push for climate action.
27:44So it was really interesting to see how they're doing that
27:47in a more conservative environment or climate change
27:51can still be a very challenging conversation to have.
27:55So I was helping them in a variety of capacities,
27:58but I guess the largest projects
28:00that I did for them was a video project.
28:03So I also conducted interviews similar to Caroline
28:07with health professionals, students,
28:10and members of other Montana climate organizations
28:13on different climate topics such as climate communication,
28:17climate action during COVID,
28:20how to get involved in the climate movement,
28:23a number of topics,
28:24and edited and produced six videos and trailers.
28:28So I was really excited about that
28:30because I guess in my experience,
28:32and some people might be able to relate to this,
28:34I think working in the climate space
28:36can sometimes feel very slow and frustrating.
28:39And so hopefully by producing these videos,
28:43I was able to provide a way for Montana Health Professionals
28:46to easily communicate important information about climate
28:51that's coming from members of the community
28:53who are highly respected and well-versed in this area.
28:58So that was a really exciting project to work on,
29:01and I'll stop there and pass it along.
29:05<v ->Thanks, Natalie.</v>
29:06And I think at least one of the videos
29:07is already up on the website.
29:09So if you want, feel free to drop the link in the chat
29:12for folks to take a look at.
29:15<v ->Yeah, sure.</v>
29:17<v ->And Nora.</v>
29:20<v ->Yeah. Hi.</v>
29:21Can everyone hear me?
29:23Great. Okay.
29:24My computer is having sound problems.
29:26But hi, I'm Nora.
29:28I use she, her pronouns.
29:30I am in Yale College.
29:32I'm a senior double majoring
29:34in English and environmental studies.
29:37And I had a really wonderful opportunity this summer
29:41to work with really like two organizations at the same time.
29:45So I was working with Save the Sound,
29:48which does a lot of like regional action on climate.
29:53They take multiple angles.
29:55They have sort of like an environmental law angle,
29:57a kind of environmental justice community organizing angle,
30:01and then they also do like more scientific research
30:04around the Long Island sound
30:07and water quality and land quality.
30:10But I also got to work with Health Equity Solutions,
30:13which is a Connecticut nonprofit
30:16seeking to close health gaps in Connecticut.
30:21So Connecticut has among the largest health gaps
30:23in the United States, health disparities.
30:26And so my main project was really working
30:29with these two organizations
30:30as well as I got amazing and incredible feedback
30:32and help from the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health
30:35on developing a climate and health module
30:39that I've shown a few slides from here.
30:42So basically, Health Equity Solutions has a curriculum
30:47that they can adapt to any particular sort of business
30:52or community organization that might want it
30:55that gives basics on like what health equity is
30:59and how it relates to their lives,
31:01and they wanted to have a sort of climate justice module.
31:05And so I spent the summer developing that with them,
31:09and I also helped Save the Sound's climate advocacy team
31:14on projects like when I first joined,
31:17the last couple of weeks, I joined in late May and June
31:20were the last few weeks
31:20of the Connecticut legislative session.
31:23And so I really dived
31:25into a lot of bill tracking and advocacy,
31:29right at the end of the session
31:30when there was a big push to get things done
31:33before everyone went on a break.
31:35And then throughout the rest of the summer,
31:37I was working on more like local initiatives in Connecticut,
31:41such as helping cities in Connecticut
31:43declare climate emergencies and stuff like that.
31:48And so I, yeah.
31:49It was really a wonderful experience
31:51being able to work kind of at the intersection of this issue
31:55with so many different organizations
31:57and so many different wonderful people.
32:01<v ->Great. Thanks Nora.</v>
32:04Ian.
32:08<v ->Hey everybody.</v>
32:09So yeah, my name is Ian.
32:11I worked this summer, sorry.
32:13I am at the Yale School of Public Health.
32:15I'm a second year in the public health
32:17in the health policy department.
32:18I concentrate in climate change and health.
32:21I spent the summer working
32:23with the Connecticut governor's council
32:25on climate change or GC3.
32:28And I was with the equity
32:29and environmental justice working group.
32:32I was their Connecticut climate justice intern.
32:35So throughout the summer, I did several projects,
32:38small and large projects
32:39that are related to building climate justice,
32:41either in Connecticut
32:43and actually one project in Mississippi
32:46that was for a civic engagement engagement group
32:48built around democratizing the energy sector in Mississippi,
32:51which was pretty interesting.
32:54But the main point of my project was basically finding a way
32:57to help build climate change resiliency
33:01at a community level,
33:03and by doing so, giving more power to community members
33:07and community leaders
33:08in the climate change building process.
33:11And the point of that
33:12is to help promote building climate justice
33:14and understanding that climate change will affect, you know,
33:19does now and will affect,
33:22especially marginalized populations more severely.
33:27And so the point of the project was to find ways
33:30to kind of address this.
33:31And one of the ways we found
33:32is that when we give power at the community level,
33:38instead of like from,
33:39like instead of like the top-down approach,
33:41kind of working from like the grassroots bottom up approach,
33:44a lot of communities, they already like understand
33:46a lot of the issues they're dealing with,
33:47and sometimes they just need some of the tools
33:49to address those.
33:50So what we did was we made the main project
33:53was what I have listed here on the left.
33:55This is my cover page.
33:56This is my photo.
33:58So this is something I'm proud of.
33:59This is actually from when Hurricane Henri
34:02almost hit New Haven.
34:04But this is so the Connecticut Community-Level
34:06Climate Change Resiliency Assessment
34:08and Prioritization Plan.
34:09So the way we saw it,
34:11there was already several climate change resiliency
34:14guidelines and guidances that you can find or that exists.
34:17So what we went for instead was a way
34:20that communities can assess
34:21their own vulnerability to climate change.
34:23So the climate change resiliency assessment portion
34:25is mostly a vulnerability assessment
34:28that allows communities
34:29to look at their critical infrastructure,
34:32their vulnerable infrastructure,
34:33things like daycare schools, hospitals,
34:37their vulnerable populations,
34:40and also their environmentally-exposed populations.
34:44So these would be exposed populations
34:45that might not be necessarily vulnerable populations,
34:49but they maybe are located closer to like the seaside,
34:53and so they're vulnerable for different reasons.
34:55So basically, it allows communities individually
34:57to look at their specific vulnerabilities of climate change
35:00and then gives them a list of steps
35:02on how they can engage with their community members
35:04and how the city plan companies can engage
35:06with those community members,
35:07identify leaders in the community,
35:09and kind of build this trust and network of knowledge
35:12within the community
35:14to come up with the second part of this,
35:17which is the prioritization plan.
35:19So to come up with a list of ideas
35:21that they think would be useful
35:23in addressing climate change, and that should be prioritized
35:26based off of their community knowledge
35:28and the knowledge of climate change
35:30that we kind of gave guidelines
35:32on how to build in the community.
35:34<v ->Great.</v>
35:35<v ->And so the final result would be...</v>
35:38<v ->Finish your sentence.</v>
35:39Go ahead.
35:40<v ->Oops, and then the final result</v>
35:40would just be a list of priorities
35:42that we put forward to the planning committee.
35:44<v ->Great. Thanks, Ian.</v>
35:48Adriana.
35:53<v ->Hi, my name's Adriana,</v>
35:55and I'm a Yale College sophomore.
36:00Should be a junior,
36:01but I took a year off during the pandemic.
36:05I will be an environmental studies major
36:08and this year,
36:12I'm also a Yale Center
36:14on Climate Change and Health student associate.
36:19So my project title was municipal tools for extreme heat,
36:22and the two organizations that I was interning for
36:27were the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health,
36:29and also UConn's Connecticut Institute
36:32for Resilience and Climate Adaptation.
36:36So I was working with Dr. Bozzi
36:38and also Dr. Wozniak Brown from CIRCA,
36:43and they were both fantastic preceptors.
36:45I want to start with that.
36:47So I was very glad to have the opportunity
36:48to work with them and their team and just to learn
37:00from their projects and past experiences.
37:07So I think it's very important
37:08to start with the fact that in the US,
37:11extreme heat kills more people per year
37:14than any other weather-related event.
37:18And many Connecticut municipalities
37:20are not adapted to extreme heat.
37:24So there are many vulnerable populations at risk
37:27during these extreme heat events
37:31for heat-related illnesses and other adverse impacts.
37:36So our project's goal
37:38was to determine the climate adaptation needs
37:44of Connecticut municipalities related to extreme heat,
37:48and also to provide municipal leaders with tools
37:52that address extreme heat vulnerability at the local level.
37:57So my main project was to develop an extreme heat toolkit
38:02for Connecticut's municipal decision makers,
38:06mainly local public health
38:08and emergency management officials.
38:10So I did this
38:11by researching existing extreme heat response plans
38:16from other states,
38:17recommending short and long-term policy and planning actions
38:22and adapting the most relevant heat response resources.
38:26And I also acted as a research assistant
38:30for qualitative interviews we conducted
38:34with Connecticut municipal leaders,
38:36such as the emergency management directors I mentioned.
38:40So we were just learning about the existing strategies
38:45for responding to the extreme heat.
38:49And the project is still ongoing.
38:51Dr. Bozzi and Wozniak Brown are still conducting interviews
38:56and the toolkit is still in development.
38:59But I just want to say that through this process,
39:02I became much more familiar
39:04with Connecticut's municipalities, towns,
39:08and generally government structures,
39:11and also gained knowledge
39:16about qualitative research design and methods,
39:19climate health, of course,
39:20and the relationship between urban planning
39:25and public health and also environmental justice.
39:29<v ->Great.</v>
39:30Thanks, Adriana.
39:32Okay, so shift back to our panel cover
39:38and invite you for a discussion.
39:42So first, climate communication is hard,
39:48and many of the scientists don't do it very well.
39:52It's not.
39:53So through your internships and various ways,
39:57you were able to dig into this.
39:59So what advice do you have?
40:03Have you gleaned some best practices
40:05around communicating around climate change and health
40:09and what are the qualities
40:12that make that best practice effective, do you think?
40:22<v ->Yeah, I can...</v> <v ->Yeah.</v>
40:25<v ->Okay, I can kick it off, yeah.</v>
40:27Well, like I mentioned in my intro,
40:29it was really interesting
40:30to see how my organization operated
40:34in an environment that tends to be more conservative
40:37and has unique subpopulations that have legitimate concerns
40:41about what it means to transition to renewables
40:45or change agricultural practices, et cetera.
40:48And so in terms of being an effective communicator,
40:52I think what I learned and what I heard over and over
40:55in interviews that I conducted is first,
40:58that when you're having a conversation with someone,
41:01the goal shouldn't be to convince them of anything.
41:05It's really, the goal should be to establish a connection
41:08with that person, and to establish some level of trust.
41:13And second, that it's very important to listen,
41:16which sounds so obvious,
41:17but like what I found and kind of to my surprise
41:22was that almost no one that I spoke with
41:25was on the end of the spectrum that is climate deniers
41:29and that most people did acknowledge,
41:31at least to some extent, that this happening
41:34and we can see it happening.
41:36And the point though was like,
41:39then where the conflict came in is how do we handle it?
41:42And so it was really important to listen to the communities,
41:46for example, like ranchers,
41:48who their livelihood by and large depend on the climate,
41:52and for whom climate action is in their best interest.
41:59And so sometimes, we wouldn't even use the words
42:01climate change in a conversation
42:04because the point was really not to get everyone to agree
42:07that climate change was happening,
42:09but it was finding commonalities
42:12and finding how we can incorporate all of the economic
42:15and health concerns that people have into finding solutions.
42:24<v ->Yeah, my project was a little bit different,</v>
42:26but I think some of the same things really applied, I think,
42:31in trying to communicate sort of like climate change
42:35in the health intersection.
42:37Something I really worked on this summer
42:40was looking at like local examples
42:42of ways that like either initiatives
42:45that people who, you know,
42:47the ordinary person in Connecticut might have noticed.
42:50For example, they might have noticed
42:51that the bus they take every day
42:52now says it's an electric bus,
42:54and talking about the way that like climate and health
42:58is a problem in their everyday lives
43:01as it is now, and ways that it can be implemented
43:03as solutions that can be implemented
43:05into their everyday lives
43:07to kind of concretize what seems like to a lot of people,
43:10I think, a really big abstract
43:12and like not urgent or not immediate issue
43:16that's right in front of them.
43:22<v ->Yeah, I'd say one of the biggest things</v>
43:24that I found to be effective
43:26and it also sounds pretty obvious is don't make assumptions
43:30when you're starting to talk to people.
43:33Unlike Natalie, we did run into a couple people
43:35who told us we were wasting our time and money.
43:39So it was really important to go into those conversations
43:42with the super like level head,
43:44and also with the body language and phrasing of questions
43:48that makes it sound like you have something
43:50to learn from them as well,
43:53just because that makes them feel more
43:55a part of the conversation
43:56and I found that to be a lot more productive on the whole.
44:11<v ->Adriana or Ian, any thoughts?</v>
44:20<v ->Yeah, I can go.</v>
44:22So when we were interviewing
44:26the municipal emergency management directors
44:30and other officials,
44:35what we found was helpful was to reference
44:41like the heat waves that had been occurring that summer,
44:44because that was extremely relevant to obviously our project
44:49and also helped us frame the questions
44:52in a way that made it very relevant to them as well.
45:01And we also realized, as we were conducting our interviews,
45:06that many of the emergency management directors
45:10were not familiar with the language of climate adaptation
45:15that we had included in several of our questions.
45:18So something important that we ended up discussing
45:22was how we could better adapt our questions and our language
45:28to their experiences,
45:31because we went in sort of assuming
45:33that they would know what this means
45:37and that we wouldn't need to provide a lot of explanation.
45:41But I think that really helped us recalibrate and make sure
45:49that the way we were communicating our questions
45:59helped them and helped us.
46:06<v ->And I would just probably follow up,</v>
46:07pretty similar to what Adriana said,
46:10which is that one of the things that we found
46:13in the whole point of our assessment
46:14was that like community engagement
46:16was trying to make the language
46:18and the scenarios as relevant
46:20to the people in the communities as possible.
46:22So things like we talked
46:24about maybe adding crowdsource mapping so that we can see,
46:28okay, well, these are the roads that flood
46:29when there's heavy rains,
46:30this is only gonna get worse,
46:32who are the people that are gonna be affected by these,
46:35who's already affected by them.
46:36So it was really just like part of like the communicating
46:40is just listening,
46:42and I think that's a big thing that policy makers
46:44and climate change scientists can really take away
46:46from resiliency efforts and from climate change awareness.
46:53<v ->Okay, I'm hearing listening to people,</v>
46:56meeting people where they're at,
46:58some basic, as you all said,
47:00maybe some basic sort of human lessons,
47:05but sometimes you forget them in the moment.
47:10Thanks. That was great.
47:15I'm also curious if any of you thought more particularly
47:19about different strategies for different target audiences.
47:23We know we need to segment our messages
47:25for different audiences.
47:26Did you learn anything
47:27about different audiences through your work
47:30and make any adjustments
47:33to accommodate these different audiences?
47:46<v ->So I can think of two brief examples.</v>
47:51One of them was I ghost-wrote a op-ed
47:55for my preceptor off my supervisor and we just...
48:00I think a big part of it
48:01was just tailoring the language of it,
48:04'cause we put it in a local newspaper.
48:05There was the Hartford News.
48:06And so it was tailoring the language
48:08so that it was like a language
48:10that was easily digestible to the general community.
48:14And also a big part of that was like I was ghost-writing,
48:18so using like kind of his perspective and his voice
48:21as kind of an existing community member
48:22and a trusted community member.
48:26But I think a big part of it
48:27was just like tailoring it to the audience
48:29like who's going to be listening,
48:30and making sure the language
48:31and the vocabulary you're using is digestible
48:34regardless of who you expect might be consuming.
48:51<v ->Anyone else?</v>
48:52<v ->Yeah, I can jump in.</v>
48:54So a lot of our project or my project was focusing on people
48:59who may be resistant to listening to climate change science.
49:03So a lot of the work we did, in general, I would say,
49:06was tailoring to people who might not believe in it.
49:11So therefore like we tried, like Ian was saying,
49:14to use a lot of like digestible material,
49:16like videos, stuff like that, keeping the language simple.
49:20But yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say
49:22we were targeting many different populations
49:25because I think the whole point
49:26was to meet people where they were at
49:29and target those people who may not be as willing to buy in
49:33to the fact that climate change is going on.
49:38<v ->Yeah, and I can, going off that,</v>
49:41I think definitely talking to different groups of people,
49:44you find that individuals are certainly moved
49:46by different things.
49:47And for me, I think different from Caroline,
49:50we were targeting a less hesitant population.
49:54And so I think on a more emotional level,
49:57I found that a lot of people relate really well
50:00to the nostalgia and the sense of loss that is experienced,
50:04especially for people
50:05who have maybe spent their whole life in the same place.
50:09I talked to people who would reminisce
50:12about their favorite ski slope as kids
50:14that no longer gets snow, and not to mention people
50:18who have lost their homes in wildfires
50:20or suffer health consequences from smoky air,
50:24or are literally like moved to tears
50:26just by the thought of their children
50:28growing up in a world that potentially looks very different.
50:32And so I think those kinds of stories are very powerful
50:37and were successful for us
50:39when we were targeting a more, I guess, moderate population.
50:51<v ->I mean, I can just jump in quickly.</v>
50:52I think my project was significantly different
50:55in that like the populations
50:58that we were kind of hoping to engage
51:03like were not particularly like challenging
51:08of like a narrative of climate you didn't have.
51:10But I think one thing that I really learned,
51:14and obviously this was not really possible in the pandemic,
51:17but I helped a lot with like the youth advocacy core,
51:21which Save the Sound has.
51:23And I think first of all, like for meetings,
51:26for encouraging people to come to meetings
51:28and actually engaging people in conversation,
51:31I think what Caroline said
51:32about like meeting people where they're at
51:34and that often means geographically,
51:36like going to particular locations.
51:40Unfortunately, I was all remote all summer,
51:41but my supervisor, Alex Rodriguez,
51:44who kind of works a lot on the climate advocacy
51:49was driving all over Connecticut
51:50to have different meetings with young people
51:54and with like different representatives everywhere.
51:57And so I guess not asking people to travel large distances
52:01or take up large amounts of their time
52:05because people are busy
52:06and we want to meet them where we're at, yeah.
52:14<v ->Yeah, and I can just add quickly</v>
52:15that since during our interviews,
52:19we were speaking to municipal leaders
52:25from all across Connecticut,
52:27we had to consider that we would be speaking
52:30to some people who were not comfortable
52:35with the idea of climate change
52:39and would see the language
52:44that we used in our interviews as off-putting,
52:46if we really emphasized climate change.
52:51So we decided to really focus more on using language
53:01that emphasizes extreme heat,
53:04which is obviously part of climate change,
53:06but focusing on that one aspect.
53:09We believed we would be more...
53:19I said it was all-encompassing
53:20for the different types of leaders
53:24or the perspectives of the different leaders
53:29that we interviewed.
53:35<v ->Great. Thanks.</v>
53:36So last question.
53:38Some of you touched on this, but tell us what will happen
53:41with the product that you were working on?
53:43How might your host organization
53:47use the work that you contributed toward?
53:50And maybe is it part of some kind of campaign
53:55or other kind of goal for the organization?
54:05<v ->Sure. I can start that off.</v>
54:07So kind of like I mentioned,
54:09there's a hope that this project
54:11is kind of more long-lasting and living and breathing,
54:14and so the interviews will continue hopefully.
54:18We are still in communication with BCTV
54:22to try to get more of this broadcasted on the local level.
54:27And also we just kind of have the hope
54:29that in addition to targeting people
54:30who may not be super believing in the science,
54:34we're hoping that continuously
54:37kind of making this information available,
54:39these human stories available,
54:40that others in the community will also be motivated
54:43to like make efforts towards improving the carbon footprints
54:47or just living a life
54:49that's a little bit more like cognizant of climate change.
54:59<v ->I can say that my project is kind of an ongoing project</v>
55:04between Health Equity Solutions and Save the Sound
55:07and the Yale Center for Climate Change and Health,
55:09because the curriculum
55:11that Health Equity Solutions developed
55:13is so dependent on what the actual organization is,
55:16who they're gonna work with.
55:18So like an organization like a company
55:20or a community organization,
55:22or even a school can request
55:24particular parts of their curriculum,
55:26and obviously, every group has different time constraints.
55:31And so it continues to be an ongoing project.
55:40<v ->Yeah, so I produced six videos</v>
55:42that are about 12 minutes each
55:44and I also produced trailers for each of those videos.
55:47So my organization is posting these
55:50on their website and YouTube channel,
55:52and because I interviewed members
55:55of other climate organizations
55:58and also students who are advocating
56:00for institutional change at their schools.
56:03The videos will also be used for those other organizations.
56:08And then Montana Health Professionals
56:10may also incorporate them in grant applications.
56:17<v ->I left off my internship with the idea</v>
56:21that the final project was going to shared
56:23with my supervisor's team
56:25with the rest of the environmental, sorry,
56:30the climate justice adaptation working group,
56:33and then so hopefully, that'll maybe get used
56:36into some kind of state-level policy or planning policy,
56:40and then that it could potentially be used in other states
56:44because a big part of it
56:45was listing Connecticut specific resources
56:49to help identify vulnerable populations
56:50and to kind of help address some of the resiliency issues.
56:54So yeah, the hope is that it can be used
56:56to some level at state-level planning scenario.
57:02<v ->And my project is still ongoing,</v>
57:06but once it's completed,
57:09the municipal toolkit for extreme heat that I was working on
57:15will be distributed to municipal leaders around the state
57:22so that they can have those resources
57:24for helping their residents and infrastructure
57:30and other parts of their municipalities
57:33adapt to extreme heat.
57:36And during our interviews,
57:38the leaders that we were speaking to actually seemed eager
57:42to see what we had developed.
57:45So hopefully, it's helpful to those leaders.
57:51<v ->Great.</v>
57:52Thanks so much, everybody.
57:54Thanks to panel two, and we'll move on to our final panel.
58:02Oops. All right.
58:04So I bring up panel three,
58:05collecting and operationalizing climate and health data.
58:09We have Gwen Oliver, Max Teirstein,
58:13Trinidad Kechkian, and Katie Schlick.
58:19Gwen.
58:21<v ->I'm Gwen Oliver.</v>
58:22Thank you again to Laura and Mauro
58:25and everyone at the Yale Center
58:26for Climate Change and Health for giving us this platform
58:29to talk about what we did,
58:30and also for organizing the program,
58:32which was really excellent.
58:34So I'm at the Yale School of Public Health.
58:36I'm a master of public health student in my second year,
58:38and I'm in the epidemiology of microbial disease.
58:41So I worked at the California Department of Public Health
58:44this summer, and I specifically worked
58:46for the Climate Change and Health Equity Section,
58:48and I worked with their epidemiologist.
58:50So although a lot of the people on my team worked in policy,
58:54I actually did a lot of data work for them,
58:56which is also why I'm on this section of the event.
59:00So the main thing that I worked on over the summer
59:02was this biannual update of the climate change
59:05and health vulnerability indicator data and narratives.
59:10And so essentially, one thing that the climate change
59:12and health equity section does
59:14is they keep up to date these data sets
59:16that are used by municipal planners,
59:19health organizations, local health departments,
59:22and also just community members,
59:24and essentially, in order to create data
59:28that's in an accessible form
59:29for them to do vulnerability assessments,
59:31especially for climate change.
59:32So for example, like poverty by census tract,
59:35or like linguistically-isolated populations.
59:40And I also updated narratives
59:42that were associated with these datasets
59:45so that people knew what they were looking at.
59:47And I think that the other panelists
59:50will get into this as well, but this is really critical
59:52because people need information to make decisions.
59:55And so especially at the local health department level,
59:58people really depend on these datasets
60:00and on the California Department of Public Health
01:00:04to provide them with this information for planning purposes.
01:00:06So it was a really incredible experience, and yeah.
01:00:10Thank you.
01:00:14<v ->Thanks, Gwen.</v>
01:00:17Oops, here we go.
01:00:20Max.
01:00:21<v ->Hi everybody.</v>
01:00:23Thank you so much for coming today.
01:00:24It's so nice to see some of your faces.
01:00:27I'm just gonna jump right in because I only have two minutes
01:00:30and I had a lot of projects I was put on.
01:00:32I worked this summer
01:00:33for the Center for Community Engagement,
01:00:35Environmental Justice, and Health.
01:00:37It's a mouthful.
01:00:38We call it CEEJH for short.
01:00:40And all of my projects
01:00:42had something to do with environmental justice mapping.
01:00:46So just like Gwen just said,
01:00:49it looked a lot like layering data
01:00:51from the realms of public health and environmental data
01:00:55and climate data and socioeconomic data
01:00:57to identify where the most vulnerable communities
01:01:00in an area are.
01:01:01And there are lots of different indicators
01:01:03for capturing that kind of vulnerability,
01:01:06and part of my work, especially one of my projects
01:01:10was putting together a white paper that surveyed
01:01:13sort of current environmental justice mapping tools
01:01:16that are available that layer these kinds of data
01:01:18and identifying gaps,
01:01:20indicators of vulnerability that should be included,
01:01:24but maybe aren't right now.
01:01:25And that white paper will be published soon
01:01:28on the National Wildlife Federation's website.
01:01:31It's going to be presented
01:01:32to the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
01:01:37and that was just a really awesome project that I worked on.
01:01:41I also participated in a project
01:01:44for a publication called Consumer Reports
01:01:47that I'm sure some of you have heard of,
01:01:50and that project was mapping out
01:01:52where Amazon warehouses were located across the country
01:01:56and sort of trying to make an argument
01:01:58that Amazon disproportionally sites,
01:01:59its warehouses and facilities,
01:02:02and areas that are primarily black and brown
01:02:05and low income and have low educational attainment.
01:02:10So particularly vulnerable areas.
01:02:12And we were able to find that that actually is true
01:02:15based on the data.
01:02:16So I worked on a host of other projects,
01:02:19including updating Maryland statewide
01:02:21environmental justice mapping tool
01:02:23and their park equity mapping tool.
01:02:25I did some community engagement in North and South Carolina,
01:02:29which is also mapping tool related.
01:02:32But yeah, I'm excited to answer any questions
01:02:34and talk a little bit more about that in the Q&A portion.
01:02:40<v ->Thanks. And Trini.</v>
01:02:44<v ->Hi everyone. I'm Trini.</v>
01:02:45I use she, her pronouns,
01:02:47and I am a fifth year student
01:02:52at the School of the Environment.
01:02:53I'm pursuing a master of environmental management.
01:02:56I was a Yale College undergrad before that.
01:03:02So I graduated in May
01:03:04and I studied environmental studies and global affairs
01:03:07during my time on Yale College.
01:03:09This summer I interned with WE ACT for Environmental Justice
01:03:14on their cooling center audit project.
01:03:17So WE ACT is a membership-based organization
01:03:21that has been fighting for the health and wellbeing
01:03:24of low-income communities and communities of color
01:03:27in Northern Manhattan.
01:03:28So that's Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood
01:03:31for the past 30 years.
01:03:34And the project that I was working on
01:03:35was about adaptation strategies for extreme heat events,
01:03:39which are a pressing public health issue in New York City.
01:03:43The New York City Cooling Center Program
01:03:46provides public spaces for residents to go and cool down
01:03:51during extreme heat events.
01:03:54And in the summer of 2019, WE ACT conducted an audit
01:03:58of about 50 cooling centers across Northern Manhattan
01:04:03to assess our effectiveness,
01:04:05and they found that they were underutilized,
01:04:09lacks sufficient way-finding,
01:04:12didn't consistently offer amenities or activities.
01:04:16It didn't have food or water,
01:04:18and sometimes even lacked a working AC.
01:04:23And so they compiled all of this into a report
01:04:25that they've used to organize
01:04:28and advocate for the improvement of these cooling centers.
01:04:33So during the summer of 2021,
01:04:36WE ACT wanted to conduct a second audit
01:04:39of the cooling centers across Northern Manhattan
01:04:43using an improved auditing form
01:04:46developed by a team of students
01:04:48during the spring 2021 clinic in climate justice
01:04:53and climate policy law and public health.
01:04:59And so my job was to coordinate the audit project
01:05:03and actually make it happen this summer.
01:05:05So that included training and coordinating volunteers,
01:05:13fine-tuning the auditing form,
01:05:16and collecting and analyzing the data.
01:05:21<v ->Great. Thanks Trini.</v>
01:05:25And Katie.
01:05:28<v ->Hi everybody.</v>
01:05:29My name is Katie Schlick.
01:05:30I use she, her pronouns, and I am a senior in Yale College,
01:05:34majoring in environmental studies.
01:05:36This summer, I was really excited
01:05:37to work for the New Haven City Plan Department,
01:05:39and I was supporting, in general,
01:05:43their initiatives planning for climate and health
01:05:45and building back after COVID-19 and then also,
01:05:50just really supporting their community outreach.
01:05:53So I had kind of two or three main focuses.
01:05:57The first one was the city plan department.
01:06:00First off, just as a little background,
01:06:02the city plan department,
01:06:03it's an amazing office that works closely
01:06:05with economic development
01:06:06and a bunch of other city departments,
01:06:08some different boards and commissions
01:06:10like planning commission, the zoning commission,
01:06:14the historic society, and then community management teams,
01:06:18elders, and residents to facilitate
01:06:21the meaningful physical development of the city
01:06:24alongside sustainable land use
01:06:26and economic and social policy.
01:06:29So I supported the City Plan Commission
01:06:31and its public outreach efforts,
01:06:33and it's kind of as they transitioned
01:06:34into doing them over Zoom this whole year.
01:06:37I also reformatted and updated the zoning code
01:06:40so that it's more accessible online for people,
01:06:42and then I also helped out
01:06:45with framing the Long Wharf Responsible Growth Plan
01:06:48in the context of community engagement needs
01:06:50as they've changed a lot since the plan,
01:06:53which you can see in that,
01:06:54like on the right side of the slide.
01:06:56That's kind of the vision
01:06:57for redeveloping a Long Wharf area and revitalizing it,
01:07:01and that plan was like many, many years in the making.
01:07:05But I think a lot of, as we know,
01:07:07like a lot of community needs
01:07:08and just the physical environment has changed
01:07:11since the pandemic too.
01:07:13So I was kind of reassessing that in all those contexts.
01:07:17So a couple of my key takeaways
01:07:20from the summer were first,
01:07:22just, it was an amazing experience
01:07:24to understand how government operates
01:07:26and how many openings there are
01:07:28at such a local level to create real tangible change,
01:07:31and I saw that firsthand in like the four
01:07:33or five-hour long city plan commission meetings
01:07:35and hearing the public testimony, anywhere from that
01:07:39to when people would submit other forms of testimony
01:07:42or show up to neighborhood walks that we did
01:07:44as we were looking at the neighborhoods
01:07:47and thinking about how plans could adjust
01:07:49to fit the needs that we're seeing on the ground.
01:07:52I also have a huge appreciation for how influential
01:07:57and critical a city plan department is in general
01:08:00for tackling the climate crisis
01:08:02and building back from COVID-19 with equity and justice
01:08:05at the forefront of that conversation.
01:08:08It just the built environment so much reflects
01:08:13like how we're able to build community
01:08:15and how we're able to prioritize equity and justice.
01:08:19And so it's just like, it is a longer time scale,
01:08:22but it's so meaningful and important.
01:08:24And then third, I would say,
01:08:26I really appreciated my preceptor, Jamie Stein,
01:08:29and the cohort of fellows.
01:08:31It was also affiliated
01:08:32with the Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship.
01:08:36And it was just amazing to be able to all work together,
01:08:38to go from this book, planning to stay,
01:08:41and think about how we can hear the voices
01:08:46of the people in the community on the ground,
01:08:49and then match that up right to what the plans were
01:08:51that we you're creating and how they're being implemented
01:08:54in the coming months and years ahead.
01:08:56So thank you.
01:08:58<v ->Great. Thanks, Katie.</v>
01:09:01All right.
01:09:02So a few questions.
01:09:08So I think I'll frame this out bigger,
01:09:11a little bit bigger than data and also say
01:09:13that it's around kind of community planning
01:09:17and community engagement.
01:09:21You know, the way that you do it really matters.
01:09:24The way that you're collecting and using the data
01:09:26and presenting the data
01:09:27or the way that you are making decisions for
01:09:30with communities, like that process really matters,
01:09:32and we learned that
01:09:33through principles of environmental justice.
01:09:35So can you talk about observations
01:09:38that you saw about maybe ways that that went well
01:09:41or challenges that you saw
01:09:43in applying those principles and practice in your projects?
01:09:53Anyone can jump in.
01:09:57<v ->I can talk a little bit.</v>
01:09:59I didn't have a lot of direct community engagement
01:10:02just because at the California Department
01:10:03of Public Health level,
01:10:05they're almost like a federal government institution,
01:10:09because they're so big,
01:10:10but something that I did see that was really successful
01:10:13was that a lot of the planning
01:10:14and work that the climate change
01:10:16and health equity section did involved community partners.
01:10:19And so that's especially essential
01:10:21because it is an equity organization.
01:10:25And so it was really important for them
01:10:27to kind of like go into communities
01:10:29and partner with community groups and say,
01:10:31like what do you need?
01:10:33Like what resources are lacking?
01:10:36Or like there's been discussion
01:10:38of like weatherization of houses,
01:10:41and that is really critical,
01:10:43but like is that something that people are invested in?
01:10:47Is that like the primary thing that they need?
01:10:50And so I think that like a little bit less directly related
01:10:53to my project, but just in general,
01:10:55I think the team that I worked on was really excellent
01:10:58at engaging with partners
01:10:59who were directly plugged into the community
01:11:02and knew what was needed.
01:11:05<v ->Yeah, I would just add also,</v>
01:11:07like I have found that when community partners
01:11:13play pivotal role in data collection and on the project,
01:11:18for example, I worked on a project,
01:11:19updating the CEEJH's park equity mapper,
01:11:24which basically assesses community's
01:11:27relative access to green space.
01:11:30That was a much more successful,
01:11:34I think, endeavor ultimately,
01:11:36than was this kind of broader dataset work that I did
01:11:42for the Amazon project,
01:11:44which involved data from all over the country.
01:11:47The data was drawn
01:11:48from the national environmental justice mapping tool
01:11:53the EPA has called EJSCREEN.
01:11:57And a lot of that data is modeled,
01:11:59but we worked with a group
01:12:02called The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance
01:12:05in Baltimore to put together a different report
01:12:09that'll get published soon
01:12:10on park equity and health outcomes.
01:12:15And that data was really rich
01:12:17and the community partners could speak to its accuracy,
01:12:21whereas the national data, a lot of which was modeled
01:12:25and that data is all coming from kind of the Census Bureau,
01:12:28which is crucial, of course,
01:12:31but not a community-based organization.
01:12:33It's a huge in scope.
01:12:35So that data had a lot more inaccuracies in it
01:12:38and it was a lot more difficult to work with ultimately.
01:12:41So I think that there's an important point to be made
01:12:43about how community groups
01:12:45actually can produce much more accurate data.
01:12:48And so they make for excellent partners
01:12:50in data analysis work.
01:12:55<v ->So I can comment also here.</v>
01:12:59There were kind of two levels of community engagement
01:13:01in my project.
01:13:03One was me working with volunteers
01:13:06who are members of the community,
01:13:08and the second level being the volunteers going out
01:13:12to conduct the surveys of the users of the cooling centers,
01:13:18who are like another level of community.
01:13:23So I didn't really quite get to be communicating
01:13:29with the actual users of the cooling centers,
01:13:31but my strategy for working with the volunteers
01:13:37was to just make them feel heard
01:13:41and actually incorporate the comments
01:13:44that they had about the audit into the project.
01:13:49So the first training session that I had,
01:13:54it wasn't the smoothest, but I think because of that,
01:13:58I was able to create a much better like process
01:14:03and a much better audit form
01:14:06to actually go out and get better data
01:14:10for the project, and so a lot of the comments were like,
01:14:14so because this project involved like human subjects
01:14:18who were the users of the cooling centers,
01:14:20we had to do a consent form before doing any surveying.
01:14:25So the consent form originally was like two-pages long.
01:14:29It took like five minutes to read.
01:14:32It was really wordy and jargony.
01:14:34And when we were going through that
01:14:38during the first training session,
01:14:40I got many comments about its length
01:14:43and I managed to cut it down to one minute,
01:14:47a quick like consent form
01:14:49that still got all the information across
01:14:52that was necessary.
01:14:54And even some of the questions that were in the audit form,
01:15:00we got rid of or changed.
01:15:02We removed an entire section for the staff survey
01:15:08because we felt that, well, first of all,
01:15:11a lot of the locations, especially the public libraries
01:15:17didn't allow us to even survey,
01:15:19and we also felt that surveying staff,
01:15:26we would encounter some obstacles in that
01:15:28because staff would be suspicious
01:15:31of like what we were gonna do with information,
01:15:35whether we were gonna attach a name to the form,
01:15:39or whether we were gonna get them in trouble,
01:15:41which was not like at all the purpose of our audits,
01:15:45and they were completely anonymous.
01:15:49But yeah, because of the feedback
01:15:51that I got during that first training session,
01:15:54I kind of treated that
01:15:55as like me talking to members of the community, which I was,
01:15:59and incorporating their work, and I got some really great,
01:16:02like I got a nice email
01:16:04saying like thank you so much
01:16:05for like working so hard to incorporate our comments.
01:16:09Like you really made us feel heard.
01:16:10And that meant a lot to me.
01:16:14But to kind of comment on what Max just said
01:16:17about communities developing more accurate data,
01:16:22I kind of encountered, not the opposite problem,
01:16:25but I think it depends
01:16:27what kind of data you're really looking for.
01:16:29So for me, I think training,
01:16:33I think I had like 25 or 30 volunteers
01:16:36to go out and to do audits.
01:16:40There's gonna be variability in that
01:16:43and not everyone's gonna conduct the survey the same way
01:16:46despite the trainings that I did.
01:16:49So that was one of the obstacles that I think I encountered.
01:16:58<v ->I would add for the City Plan Department as well,</v>
01:17:01I think there were a couple of different ways
01:17:02in which community engagement
01:17:04and collecting data from there was prioritized.
01:17:08So one project
01:17:09that another one of the fellows was working on
01:17:11was the redevelopment of the strong school neighborhood.
01:17:15And so I kind of came in at a time
01:17:18when they had already worked with a consulting firm
01:17:20to develop a feedback survey.
01:17:22But then in terms of distributing the survey,
01:17:24it's a little tricky with COVID,
01:17:26but we decided that like papering was the best way to do it,
01:17:31and then there was a QR code that people could scan.
01:17:35But yeah, we distributed that kind of pretty much by hands
01:17:39to the local public library in New Haven
01:17:42to the summer schools that were running,
01:17:44New Haven public schools.
01:17:46They went up and down the street
01:17:48at the main to like grand avenue
01:17:49to all the different local businesses,
01:17:51and they went with people from that neighborhood
01:17:53so that it was received well,
01:17:56and then there was like a couple,
01:17:58we drove the whole neighborhood
01:17:59and put it in all the mailboxes and stuff.
01:18:00So this idea of like data, not just being the statistics,
01:18:04but also like the lens experiences
01:18:07and then the open comments from people.
01:18:11And then in terms of the City Plan Commission,
01:18:13which I mentioned before too,
01:18:15one big thing that came up this summer
01:18:19was meeting over Zoom.
01:18:21And so we had to make sure
01:18:22that it was accessible for people.
01:18:23So people are able to send in public comment that way,
01:18:27and then also just there's like public comment periods
01:18:29open at the meeting,
01:18:30and if we didn't get to one at one meeting,
01:18:33it would open up for the following meeting.
01:18:35So there was a lot of opportunity for engagement there.
01:18:37And then with my project with Longworth,
01:18:40all the fellows were working
01:18:41on building out community profiles
01:18:43around these already established plans.
01:18:47So in theory, there was community input
01:18:53in the plans to begin with,
01:18:55but we were trying to situate that within more of the data
01:18:59that we have from DataHaven
01:19:01that we were pulling from community management team meetings
01:19:03from talking to the elders and talking to residents.
01:19:06And another huge piece of it
01:19:08was trying to then at the end of it,
01:19:10we're packaging the profiles in a way that are useful
01:19:13for the community members themselves
01:19:15and for the neighborhoods themselves
01:19:17so that they can use that in future conversations
01:19:19or future planning commission meetings
01:19:22or whatever might be helpful there.
01:19:28<v Laura>Trini, do you want to jump in?</v>
01:19:29<v ->Yeah, I wanted to comment on data</v>
01:19:31not just being the actual survey
01:19:34or whatever you're collecting,
01:19:36but also the lived experience.
01:19:37So after every heat wave,
01:19:42I would do a debrief with the volunteers,
01:19:46and I would say that their comments are even more valuable
01:19:51than the actual audits,
01:19:52just because a lot of the audits,
01:19:54they weren't able to conduct
01:19:56or they got lost and went to a different location,
01:20:01which is data in itself
01:20:03because then that means that they're not easy to find,
01:20:07or they weren't able to conduct it
01:20:09because there were no users there,
01:20:12or their interactions with the staff
01:20:16were a little bit hostile maybe
01:20:18and they wanted to talk about that.
01:20:20So I think even, yeah, I think that's a great point, Katie.
01:20:28<v ->Okay, with just a couple of minutes left,</v>
01:20:32I'll ask you of what Gwen kind of pointed to, which is,
01:20:35do you see ways that the work that you did
01:20:37or that this data will inform policy?
01:20:47<v ->Yeah, since you pointed to me, I can go first.</v>
01:20:51Yeah, I think that it's really,
01:20:54and I also just wanted to tie this back a little bit
01:20:56to the last question,
01:20:57which is about like community engagement and equity
01:21:00and tie it back to data,
01:21:02because I think that's something
01:21:03that is overlooked sometimes is that data aggregation
01:21:06or desegregation can hide or highlight equity issues,
01:21:10and I think that that's really what the team that I was on
01:21:13was specifically trying to do was to disaggregate data
01:21:16in a way that really allowed you
01:21:17to look at like who is most vulnerable.
01:21:21For example, I brought up earlier
01:21:22like linguistically-isolated populations by census tract.
01:21:25So if you're trying
01:21:26to implement like fire safety in a region,
01:21:29but there's an entire like census tract
01:21:32that where like households don't have someone
01:21:36who speaks English and like at a certain grade level,
01:21:40then they might not be able to read
01:21:43or understand the materials that you're distributing.
01:21:45And so that's something that's really critical
01:21:47for the people who are doing work in that area to know.
01:21:50And that's something that if you just looked
01:21:52at like linguistically-isolated populations
01:21:55in all California, you wouldn't know.
01:21:57And so I think that we really aim
01:22:00to provide that desegregated data
01:22:02that allowed communities to make decisions
01:22:04based on the information in their region
01:22:08and in their community, done to a pretty narrow level.
01:22:10So I think that that's how my work contributed
01:22:15to community decision-making.
01:22:23<v ->I can say for the New Haven City Plan Department,</v>
01:22:25I think what I saw more this summer
01:22:27was less on the side of building new policy or plans
01:22:30since that's such a long time scale.
01:22:32Again, like the plan department, for the most part,
01:22:35with the exception of like approving some zoning things
01:22:38is operating on like a 20 or 30 plus year timescale.
01:22:42So like the vision that you saw of Long Wharf
01:22:44is absolutely beautiful and amazing and so exciting,
01:22:46but that will not be manifesting for a long time.
01:22:49But I think just as important as the creation of policy
01:22:53or plans is the implementation of it.
01:22:55And so now, as we're kind of past that bridge of, you know,
01:22:58they've developed the plan,
01:22:59making sure that we're constantly keeping in check
01:23:03how times have changed,
01:23:05I mean, the plan was only like drafted
01:23:08and finalized a couple of years ago,
01:23:09but all of New Haven's priorities
01:23:12situate everything has changed.
01:23:14So doing that constant
01:23:16like iterative process of reassessing
01:23:18and then thinking about what are the new needs
01:23:20that have popped up and as we're implementing it,
01:23:22is this feeling like can we go back to the drawing board?
01:23:25It's just like the reiterative process,
01:23:28and I definitely think that like data,
01:23:29whether it be lived experiences or from the census tracts
01:23:32or stuff that we're getting from DataHaven
01:23:34or from the city of New Haven GIS system,
01:23:37all of that is really important and critical
01:23:40in that assessment.
01:23:45<v ->Great.</v>
01:23:46So I think I'm gonna leave the last five minutes
01:23:50for any audience questions.
01:23:53So thank you, panel three,
01:23:56and maybe just give kind of the virtual thank you applause
01:23:59to all the panels and all of our great interns.
01:24:03(Laura clapping)
01:24:04I'll give a loud applause since I have the microphone,
01:24:09and open it up for questions.
01:24:10I don't see any in the chat,
01:24:11but would welcome anyone to raise their hand
01:24:15and jump in or add it into the chat.
01:24:43Anybody?
01:24:46<v ->You've got one in the chat</v>
01:24:48about tips for securing your internship.
01:24:51<v ->Oh, that's a good one.</v>
01:24:56Well, it's a good plug
01:24:57for our climate change and health internship program.
01:25:00So one thing that we actually...
01:25:01One of the reasons that we built out this program
01:25:03was that we realized that climate change and health
01:25:05is a fairly new field, and that sometimes it's hard
01:25:10for students to find those projects.
01:25:11So we've worked with partners
01:25:15of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health
01:25:17and others in our network to identify these projects,
01:25:20and then we make them eligible now to all MPH students,
01:25:25environmental studies majors students,
01:25:27and our Yale Center
01:25:28on Climate Change and Health student associates
01:25:30who then apply and go through kind of a matching process.
01:25:33So that's one strategy is to work through our process.
01:25:38But if others have other advice
01:25:41for securing them through kind of traditional means,
01:25:45that'd be great to talk about.
01:25:50<v ->I feel like no one wants to hear this,</v>
01:25:52but networking is your friend,
01:25:54and I would count this as networking.
01:25:56Like being a student associate last year
01:25:58is how I heard about this program,
01:26:00and I doubt that I would have been able to find something
01:26:03that was as tailored to what I wanted to do
01:26:05if I didn't kind of have an existing network here at Yale
01:26:09and the people that I know who found internships
01:26:12that were more tailored to their wants and needs,
01:26:14but most typically through advisers
01:26:17or co-workers or other things like that.
01:26:19So there's a lot on indeed and stuff like that,
01:26:21but I think it tends
01:26:24to be more successful and more interesting
01:26:26if you find something through someone else.
01:26:32<v ->Yeah, I was in the clinic</v>
01:26:34for climate justice in public health last spring
01:26:38and that's how I heard about this internship.
01:26:42So agreed on the networking and finding connections.
01:26:48<v ->I will just second that course</v>
01:26:50for anybody who has not heard of it yet.
01:26:53I'm sure that most of you have
01:26:56and many of you probably are in it right now,
01:26:58but it's an amazing, amazing course,
01:27:01and ended up actually really giving me kind of the framework
01:27:04for what I would want to do
01:27:07with like most of my or the next few years, I guess.
01:27:11I had never heard of environmental justice mapping
01:27:13before that class,
01:27:14and now that's like what I am running my senior essay on
01:27:17and what I spent the summer working on and last summer too.
01:27:21So would highly recommend that course.
01:27:28<v ->Thanks. Great.</v>
01:27:31Well, I think we'll call it a night.
01:27:35Thanks again to everybody for your great presentations,
01:27:39and I look forward to chances to see you in person sometime
01:27:45and learn more about it,
01:27:46and I hope that others do that as well.
01:27:50If you heard of something that you were interested in
01:27:52and you want to learn more,
01:27:53then reach out to your colleague here.
01:27:57So thanks everybody and have a great night.