Role of social worker in conservation of environment
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Climate Change and Public Health: How Social Workers Can Advocate for Environmental Justice
By Kate Jackson
Social Work Today
Vol. 17 No. 6 P. 10
Social workers speak out about the profession's role in combatting a clear and present danger.
While climate change is denied, debated, and routinely discussed as a phenomenon the effects of which will be seen in the future, people the world over—particularly those with the fewest resources—are already feeling those effects and reeling from their impact. As climate change foments natural disasters such as hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, Americans are increasingly recognizing that the threat to public health is neither imminent nor emergent, but is, rather, an existential crisis.
As a profession dedicated to supporting the most vulnerable among us—those disproportionately affected by environmental disaster—social workers can play a key role in the fight for environmental justice, helping to prevent and address the consequences of climate change through education, advocacy, community organizing, and research.
Climate Change as a Public Health Issue
"Climate change is understood to be a public health issue because it affects the quality of our water, air, food supplies, and living spaces in a multitude of key ways," according to Terri Klemm, MSW, LCSW, an associate professor of social work and director of the Bachelor of Social Work program at Centenary University in New Jersey. "Since the year 2000, we've experienced 16 of the hottest 17 years ever recorded. In fact, in every year for the last several years, we've exceeded the previous record for the hottest year in recorded history. It's past the point where we can talk about climate change only as an issue that will impact future generations because we're beginning to feel some of the severe effects of the climate crisis now."
"Extreme events like heat waves, heavy rainfall, and winter extremes are more likely with a changing climate," says Lisa Reyes Mason, PhD, MSW, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work.
"The increasing number of these extreme weather events—hurricanes that are unprecedented in size and strength, for example—are very much in line with what climate scientists have been warning we should expect as a result of global warming," Klemm says.
These extremes, Mason says, also lead to increased flooding, prolonged draught, and greater risk of wildfires, which in turn result in "greater incidence of infectious disease, illness, death, and emotional or mental stress. During heat waves, for example, people with preexisting health conditions such as asthma may be even more likely to suffer health problems."
With drought, explains Cathryne Schmitz, PhD, MSW, a professor in the department of social work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the quality of the water supply decreases, and with disasters such as hurricanes Harvey and Irma, illnesses are spread through the water.
"All of this," Klemm says, "adversely affects not only our physical health, but just about every aspect of our well-being."
"The mental stress and trauma of flood events like those caused by Hurricane Harvey can have chronic, long-term impacts without adequate treatment and care," Mason says. The New York Times, for example, recently reported about the long-term effect of Hurricane Katrina on the children it displaced, noting that mental health issues spiked drastically after the disaster, and the stress of displacement depleted many of the youngsters' ability to cope, particularly those with few or tenuous social supports and resources