Shea, pediatrician and climate change expert, featured in JAMA
June 03, 2009 | |
Pediatrician Katherine Shea encourages physicians to take advantage of opportunities to teach their young patients about how climate change can affect their health and futures in the June 3 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in its “Medical News and Perspectives” section. Shea, MD, MPH, is an adjunct professor of maternal and child health in the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. The article, “Climate Change Puts Children in Jeopardy,” comments upon Shea’s efforts not only to explain “the disproportionate burden children face from climate change, but also steps that pediatricians and other clinicians can take to lessen the impact.” Shea describes the importance of the “teachable moment” with young patients in the pediatrician’s office. Even in a busy clinical practice, she says, it is possible for the physician to relate a child’s asthma to air pollution and help the child understand that helping to reduce gas emissions (e.g., biking) can improve air quality and health. “We have to move quickly,” Shea was quoted as saying in the article, “because our window of opportunity to prevent serious, chronic changes [from warming temperatures] is closing pretty quickly.” UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.
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