Exploring the Relationship between Environmental Health Advocacy and Single Payer
The PNHP-NY Metro September student-sponsored educational forum focused on the environmental justice movement in New York and its connection to single payer. For years, environmental justice groups in NY have shed light on how communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately affected by pollution. This long-standing pattern of environmental racism has led to clear health detriments, such as the childhood asthma crisis in Harlem. In order to create solutions to ingrained systemic issues, we will examine how implementing single payer can emphasize preventative health and alleviate these geographic disparities. This forum will illuminate the shared goals between both movements and explore specific ways in which they can work together to push for policy change. Single payer policy, both federally and on a state-level, needs to be created with the intention of addressing the existing effects of environmental racism and crafting policies that will fight against it in the future.
Speakers including:
-Flandersia Jones RN, MPH, a nurse for over thirty years, currently at BronxCare Health System in the Bronx.
-Megan Carr, a third year law student at CUNY School of Law and a legal intern in the Environmental Justice Division at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI).
-Anna Koerner, a third year medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons and a PNHP-NY Metro Student Fellow.
-Saumya Kasliwal, a third year medical student at the Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine and a PNHP-NY Metro Student Fellow.
