In the sixth installment of VCCA's Health in Virginia's Changing Climate webinar series, Dr. Rebecca Philipsborn of Emory University will discuss the impact of climate change on gastrointestinal health. Dr. Philipsborn will cover how changing precipitation patterns and extreme weather events lead to an altered burden of enteric infections, how climate change threatens access to safe drinking water and food security, and describe health and climate benefits of plant-forward diets.

In the fifth of our 2020 webinar series, VCCA is proud to feature Dr. Kimberly S. Reece of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Dr. Reece presented on decades of monitoring and research on harmful algal bloom (HAB) species in the Chesapeake Bay area, which are being detected with increasing frequency. She discussed various clinical syndromes associated with human exposure to HAB species.

The fourth of our 2020 webinar series featured two presenters on the topic of protecting outdoor workers from dangers posed by rising temperatures due to climate change. Dr. Julia Gohlke from Virginia Tech presented a research study conducted in Alabama, in which City of Birmingham public works employees, along with residents in urban and rural locations, participated in a week long study to estimate heat exposure during the summertime. Results were compared with other studies examining heat exposure for outdoor workers in other U.S. locations. Implications of findings were discussed in the context of climate change that has occurred, as well as climate change that is expected to occur. VCCA Steering Committee Member, Dr. Robert Kitchen, reported on the status of state and national legislation for the protection of workers from extreme heat.

The third of our 2020 webinar series was delivered by Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, Chief Scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia and Affiliate Faculty in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and the Center for Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Hoffman has served as a member of the Environment Committee for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, a Science Communication Fellow for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and was recently honored as the 2019 recipient of the Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action Excellence in Climate and Health Educator Award.  He was also one of Style Weekly Richmond's Top 40 Under 40 and one of the Grist 50 Fixers for 2020. ​In July 2017, the Richmond Urban Heat Island Assessment – a community-informed, citizen science campaign – found that temperatures can vary by over 15°F across the city at the same time during a heat wave event. Warmer temperatures tended to be centralized in communities of color with limited resources, whose disproportionate exposure to heat appears to be borne out in adverse health outcomes from asthma to heat-related illnesses. These patterns also echo maps of Richmond community "redlining" during the 1930s and 1940s. Do these patterns play out regionally and nationally? Here we explored plausible connections between historical housing policy and exposure to extreme heat, as well as other deleterious patterns in our urban areas.

The second of our 2020 webinar series was delivered by Dr. Holly Gaff, a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University with extensive research and publications on Tick-borne diseases.  Dr. Gaff discussed tick ecology and migration patterns which ultimately affect the health of Virginians through transmission of diseases such as Lyme Disease.  Dr. Gaff discussed how health professionals can help connect the dots between the health of the planet and the health of our patients.

The first of our 2020 webinar series was delivered by Dr. Christine James, an allergist at the Institute for Asthma and Allergy in Washington, D.C.  Dr. James covered how climate change is affecting the spring allergy season and how health professionals can help connect the dots between the health of the planet and the health of our patients