Nurses from across the country have gathered in Baltimore this week for their first-ever national conference exploring the connection between human health and the environment.
The newly formed Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments has been holding two days of meetings at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, talking about how to keep toxic substances out of homes, preventing lead poisoning and asthma and dealing with the potential health impacts of climate change. On Wednesday, there'll be post-conference workshops and a trip for some to Washington to learn about and lobby for environmental health legislation.
The nurses' lunchtime speaker Tuesday is Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment. Others addressing the conference include Barbara Sattler, director of the UM nursing school's environmental health education center. For more on the conference and speakers, go here.