An all-day Toxics & Health Integration workshop will be held at the Washington Stormwater Center in Puyallup on December 3rd from 9:30-4:30.
We are hoping to have people attend in person and are also offering a virtual connection. Please join us in person at the Washington Stormwater Center in Puyallup, or virtually using Zoom by registering HERE.
Many hands make light work
The Stormwater Strategic Initiative Lead (SIL) centers most of its toxics work around the Toxics in Fish (TIF) Implementation Strategy. This strategy identifies actions needed to reduce toxics in aquatic species both for their health and the health of people and animals that eat fish in our Puget Sound waters. Actions to reduce toxics include changing the consumer products we buy, in turn reducing human exposure to toxics and better human health outcomes too.
Where Environment and Health Professions Gather
Over the course of our conversations with the Toxics Pod (a subgroup of our advisory team with other stellar practitioners), we began to discuss the need for more collaboration on toxics reduction actions between public health, environmental health and epidemiologists. In response, we decided to put together a workshop that convenes practitioners operating within the intersection of this important work and discuss opportunities and gaps to strengthen collaboration and catalyze work that has environmental and public health benefits.
We want to provide a place for these conversations to germinate ideas that will generate a shared understanding of our overlapping work and provide direction for future TIF implementation. Given the nuance and complexity of these topics, we decided to run three workshops, the first of which is on December 3rd.
Integrated environment and health collaboration is a work horse: it could help to lift our messaging-- since everyone cares about the health of the people they love -- spur support for our programs, and make more holistic, an approach that begins to form a framework for a One Health strategy.
This work connects to human health discussions across the Puget Sound recovery community, including through Safer Products for Washington law, the Puget Sound Ecosystem Management Program, and the Science Panel’s increasing attention to human health in a more centered and direct way, building on the Human Well Being Strategy from the Puget Sound Partnership.
What to expect from the workshop
Come hear from Dr. Phil Landrigan from Boston University, an epidemiologist who is a leader in Public Health. We will frame up laws, delve into the monitoring science behind the Toxics in Aquatic Life strategy, the meaning of One Health, pollution prevention, landmark legislation on Safer Products and work towards an understanding of the opportunities and challenges of ecotoxicology and human health in this field.
Questions about the workshop? Dustin.Bilhimer@ecy.wa.gov or Heidi.Siegelbaum@wsu.edu
Did you know?
The Toxics in Fish Implementation Strategy is one of three strategic frameworks for water quality for Puget Sound and everyone who lives here. For a deeper look into the strategy, please continue here.