Climate Science and Environmental Justice

What it means for behavioral medicine

February 15, 2024

1 pm EST / 12 pm CST / 10 am PST | 2 hours

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Speakers, Discussants and Moderators

Speaker - Christian Braneon, PhD, MS - Co-Lead, Environmental Justice and Climate Just Cities Network, Columbia University Earth Institute

Christian Braneon co-leads the Environmental Justice and Climate Just Cities Network at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and serves as Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change. He is an expert in the disparate exposure and vulnerability to climate change faced by marginalized communities in the US (and abroad), the historical roots of those disparities, and the mechanisms by which disparate exposure/vulnerability impacts health. He has also worked on climate change policy at the city level (NYC), and across the Just Cities Network, so he understands how research influences climate policy — and what is needed from behavioral science.

https://justicenetwork.climate.columbia.edu/content/christian-v-braneon

Speaker - Marianthi Kioumourtzoglou, ScD, MSPH - Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Marianthi Kioumourtzoglou is an Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on applied statistical issues related to environmental epidemiology, including quantifying and correcting for exposure measurement error, exposure prediction uncertainty propagation, and assessment of high-dimensional and complex exposures in health analyses. Her studies mainly (albeit not exclusively) focus on air pollution exposures and, additionally, on identifying vulnerable sub-populations and characterizing how risks may vary across neighborhood-level and other urban characteristics, as well as in a changing climate.

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/profile/marianthi-anna-kioumourtzoglou

Speaker - Adewale Oyeyemi, PhD - Associate Professor of Population Health, College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University

Adewale Oyeyemi is an Associate Professor of Population Health at the College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. in Social Health Sciences in 2013 at Ghent University, Belgium. The goal of his research is to conduct studies on health-related behaviors, including physical activity and sedentary behavior, designed to lead to evidence-based interventions directed at populations. He is also interested in how urbanization and climate risks work to influence disparities in physical activity and chronic diseases. He has been working to address this through interdisciplinary collaborations with investigators in all regions of the world. He has published several peer-reviewed scientific papers and 3 book chapters. Dr. Oyeyemi is a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Physical Activity and Health and is on the scientific committees of the International Society for Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, and the African Physical Activity Network. He is the African region representative on the steering committee of the Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!) – a Council of the International Society for Physical Activity and Health.

https://search.asu.edu/profile/4382146

Moderator - Kristi White, PhD, LP, ABPP - Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, Palliative and Primary Care, University of Minnesota

Dr. White is a board certified clinical health psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida and completed a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in primary care behavioral health in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Dr. White worked as an integrated primary care psychologist at Hennepin Healthcare. Dr. White specializes in health psychology and behavioral medicine with clinical expertise in stress, anxiety, and the biopsychosocial aspects of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. She also has a passion for health equity and social justice. Dr. White’s primary area of interest is in the overlap among health psychology, behavioral medicine, and environmental sustainability. Specifically, she is interested in taking an environmental justice perspective to promote equitable human and environmental co-benefit solutions, using her academic training as a stress researcher to guide her work.

https://med.umn.edu/bio/kristi-white

Moderator - Donald Edmondson, PhD, MPH - Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine, Medicine and Psychiatry, Columbia University

Dr. Donald Edmondson is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine (with tenure) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), and the Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health (CBCH) at CUMC. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, and received more than $20M in funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct behavioral medicine research. His work has focused on cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients, examining the development of PTSD due to CVD events and its association with secondary CVD risk after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and stroke. He is also principal investigator of the Resource and Coordinating Center (RCC) for the NIH Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) program, which promotes the application of the experimental medicine approach to identify the underlying mechanisms of behavior change. He is currently MPI of an NHLBI R01 on discrimination and cardiovascular risk in adults who face racism, as well as discrimination due to gender identity. He has published a number of papers on the role of behavioral medicine in the era of climate change, and co-founded working groups in the major behavioral medicine societies to address climate change and environmental justice through behavioral science. He received the 2018 American Psychological Association award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution in Early Career, for theoretical and empirical contributions to health psychology. Previously, he won the 2014 Neal Miller award for early career contributions to behavioral medicine from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, for research showing that hospital environment factors and perceived threat during emergency department evaluation influence psychological stress and secondary risk in CVD patients. In 2021, he was named Mentor of the Year at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

https://www.genmed.columbia.edu/profile/donald-edmondson-phd

Moderator - Eli Puterman, PhD, FABMR - Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health, University of British Columbia

Eli is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Kinesiology and the Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health. His research, developed in collaboration with community, seeks to develop, evaluate, and disseminate physical activity programs and initiatives among hard to reach and equity-deserving populations. Dr. Puterman’s work has been recognized with several young scholar awards, including from the Society of Behavioral Medicine (2014), the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (2015), and the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology (2018). Dr. Puterman is an Associate Editor for Health Psychology, serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, and is an Executive Member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research Executive Council.

https://kin.educ.ubc.ca/puterman-eli/

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What behavioral medicine researchers need to know to impact policy