Environment Section meeting for the 2022 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting

Project Summary/Abstract The American Public Health Association (APHA) is a large organization with a total membership of over 25,000. Sections are the primary professional units of the APHA and conduct activities that promote the mission and fulfill the goals of APHA. The 150th Annual Meeting will be held

from November 6-9 in Boston, Massachusetts. The theme for this year’s conference, with an anticipated attendance of over 12,000 in total, is "150-Years of Creating the Healthiest Nation: Leading the Path Toward Equity." The Environment Section’s goal for the Annual Meeting is to foster interest in environmental health, increase student involvement, and provide educational

offerings on various environmental health topics. The Section offers a wide variety of sessions, posters, plenary sessions, and special events to a diverse audience representing academics, health professionals, community members, and students. The Section’s agenda focuses on environmental advocacy, in particular addressing environmental justice and climate change. We

seek to engage students and connect them with mentors to learn about community-centered environmental health initiatives and leaders. Our aims for the R13 grant are: 1) Build the next generation of environmental health leaders by providing a mechanism for underrepresented students to attend, engage, and thrive at the meeting;

2) Foster mentorship between students and public health professionals, particularly around environmental justice and environmental health science; 3) Advance the promotion of translating data to knowledge and action by connecting students to a forum (i.e. a community of practice) for dissemination of results about research and advocacy;

4) Engage scholarship recipients beyond the annual meeting through Section leadership roles, networking opportunities, and mentorship, as interested. We leverage a network of 1,500 academic, governmental, and community-based environmental health professionals to directly promote the conference scholarship to a wide range of schools

across the United States. In accomplishing this, we help create a professional pipeline within APHA for underrepresented students geared towards environmental health science careers. This provides mid-career and longtime members the opportunity to engage with the next generation of environmental health scientists. In achieving these outcomes we support NIEHS’s

strategic plan and mission to conduct and support the very best environmental health sciences in alignment with real-world public health needs, and to translate scientific findings into knowledge that informs real-life individual and public health outcomes.