Expert Panel on Environmental & Public Health

The Expert Panel on Environmental & Public Health provides guidance in support of policy, systems, and environmental actions to prevent or minimize threats to the public’s health related to environmental and social determinants of health. The Expert Panel inspires nurses to address health care and public health policies, practices, and infrastructure that strengthen environmental stewardship and promote health equity for all.

Inaugural Year: 2010

Chair:
Barbara Polivka, PhD, RN, FAAN
Associate Dean for Research and Professor
Kansas University Medical Center College of Nursing

Vice Chair: 
Lisa Campbell, DNP, RN, PHNA-BC, FAAN
Founder & CEO
Population Health Consultants, LLC

Board Liaison: Rebecca M. Patton 

Staff Liaison: Madeleine Rohrbach

Previous Chairs: Teddie Potter (2020-2022), Paul Kuehnert (2019-2020), Susan Zahner (2018-2019), Betty Bekemeier (2016-2017), Patricia Butterfield (2017-2018)

Summary:
Citizens are increasingly concerned about environmental exposures and disease occurrence. They are asking questions about the role that environmental factors play in conditions such as asthma, reproductive disorders, and neurobehavioral conditions. They want to understand the extent to which our rapidly changing world is responsible for changes in disease frequency and severity. Over the past 20 years, the nursing profession has developed a robust body of knowledge addressing environmental health. Nurses on the Environmental Health Expert Panel are committed to serving as resource to the Academy and advancing health policy and research in this critical area of nursing and health.

Publications/Resources:

• Consensus Statement: Consensus statement on leveraging equity in policy to improve recognition and treatment of mental health, substance use disorders, and nurse suicide (February 2023)
• Position Statement on Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention (November 17, 2022)

• Policy Dialogue: Public Health Preparedness and IT: Lessons from the Field (Hosted in August 2021)

  Hosted by the Informatics and Technology Expert Panel in Collaboration with the Expert Panels on Environmental and Public Health; Health Equity; and Building Health Care System Excellence, this dialogue featured a discussion on addressing global infectious disease challenges with thought leaders on health informatics, technology, and global public health. These experts summarized the lessons learned in response to COVID-19 pandemic so far and proposals to improve Health IT infrastructure and reporting so that public health and infectious disease responses can be more efficient.

• Consensus Statement: Consensus statement on leveraging equity in policy to improve recognition and treatment of mental health, substance use disorders, and nurse suicide (February 2023)
• Consensus Paper: Defining the Social Determinants of Health for Nursing Action to Achieve Health Equity (October 2021)
• Practice Guidelines: At-Risk populations and public health emergency preparedness in the United States: Nursing leadership in communities (July 2021)
  
• Policy Brief: Policy brief on climate change and mental health/well-being (July 2021)
• Policy Brief: Preventing adverse health outcomes among children and adolescents by addressing screen media practices concomitant to sleep disturbance (July-August 2019)
• Position Statement: Disaster preparedness for older adults (January-February 2019)
• Policy Brief: Nurses play essential roles in reducing health problems due to climate change. Nursing Outlook 66 (March/April 2018) 210-213.
  
• Policy Brief: Reduce noise: Improve the nation’s health (September-October 2017) 
• Policy Brief: Increasing the capacity of public health nursing to strengthen the public health infrastructure and to promote and protect the health of communities and populations (September-October 2017) 
• Policy Brief: Engaging communities in creating health: Leveraging community benefit (September-October 2017) 
• Policy Brief: Nurses play essential roles in reducing health problems due to climate change (March-April 2018)  

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