Healthy Aging and the Environment Initiative
“We need a new economic paradigm that recognizes the parity between the three pillars
of sustainable development. Social, economic, and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.”
Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General, on the International Day of Happiness
Organized by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI)
in association with the Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the UN
Upcoming:
May 7-9 - Ecological Health Across the Lifespan - Retreat at Commonweal, Bolinas, CA
Recently:
March 12-13 - Aging in America - Chicago - Panels on "Safer Chemicals Healthier Aging: Prescriptions for Prevention" March 12 and "Healthy Generations Across the Lifespan" March 13.
Dr. Ted Schettler addresses healthy environments across the lifespan at Chicago "Aging in America," a national conference attended by over 2500 organized by the American Society on Aging.
 Maria Valenti discusses the mulitple environmental factors that influence health with (L-R) Kathy Sykes, US EPA Aging Initiative, Medha Chandra, Pesticide Action Network, and Rick Moody, AARP - at Aging in America breakfast. Kathy, Medha and Rick joined with CHE's Ted Schettler and Maria on two panels at the major conference.
March 3-6, 2013 - Environmental Health 2013: Science and Policy to Protect Future Generations- Boston, Massachusetts – We presented a well-received a poster on March 5th at the Boston conference on “Environmental Determinants of Health Across the Lifespan: Opportunities for Health-Promoting Interventions”. CHEworking group leaders on Diabetes (Sarah Howard) and Fertility (Karin Russ) also presented in oral sessions at this event.
New Partners for Smart Growth - Kansas City, MO feb 7-9 - "Designing Healthy Environments Across Communities and Generations" -
 Photo: Kathy Sykes (US EPA), Yolanda Savage-Narva (America Walks) and CHE's Dr. Ted Schettler discuss healthy communities.
CHE's Dr. Ted Schettler and Maria Valenti joined with colleagues including Angela Russell from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, Dr. Arthur Wendel from the US CDC, and Leslie Meehan from the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization to address ecological health and using the County Health Rankings project to improve community health to a standing room only crowd of over 100.
"Healthy Aging and the Environment" poster at the Dec 10, 2012 Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative Statewide Summit in Newton, MA
CHE partners Dr. Polly Hoppin (L) and Ellie Goldberg in front of CHE poster at the MA Healthy Aging summit
Healthy Aging and the Environment at the 2012 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco
CHE working groups and partners presented on a variety of topics at the recent American Public Health Association Meeting in San Francisco, attended by 12,000 health professionals. Panels included "Healthy Environments Across Generations" and a "Lifecourse Approach to Health." Maria Valenti also helped staff the CHE exhibit booth with other CHE colleagues where we helped describe CHE's programs and projects to many hundreds of APHA attendees.
"Rapid population ageing and a steady increase in human longevity worldwide represent one of the greatest social, economic and political transformations of our time. These demographic changes will affect every community, family and person. They demand that we rethink how individuals live, work, plan and learn throughout their lifetimes, and that we re-invent how societies manage themselves." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Read more...
Calling all grandparents to help protect our environment and our health. Join the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition to help your grandkids grow up healthier.
Did you make it to the Healthy Environments Across Generations "unconference" at the New York Academy of Medicine in June? If not, you missed an extraordinary happening. But don't despair! You can be a part of the next steps to building healthier environments across generations. Contact me at mvalenti@igc.org if you want to join the list serve or hear about potential collaborations across sectors and disciplines.
Dr. Peter Whitehouse, Case Western Reserve University and the Intergenerational School, and Dr. Gail Christopher, the Kellogg Foundation, provide closing thoughts at the New York Academy of Medicine event that brought together over 150 people from across disciplines, sectors and ages to imagine a healthier world for all.
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 Healthy Aging and the Environment: A Pocket Guide. A 16-page illustrated guide to environmental factors that influence health across the lifespan, and how you can help make healthier choices and policies for all.
In the next few decades the number of Americans over 65 will nearly double and they will likely face increased diseases and disabilities unless we prioritize disease prevention across the lifespan.
Environmental factors that affect health include the natural, built, food, chemical, psychosocial and socioeconomic environments. Interventions that address the environmental origins of many diseases can be designed to promote health and also benefit ecosystems. The scientific report Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging describes how modifiable environmental factors are key drivers in today's chronic diseases. It explores how these factors interact with the biology of inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin signaling to promote diseases of the aging such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s - as well as the “Western Disease Cluster,” including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, themselves risk factors for neurodegeneration.
And, how these diseases are being driven by dramatic changes over the past century in the food, built, and chemical environments among others.
View release on The Today Show on MSNBC website.
Goals of the Initiative
CHE’s Healthy Aging and the Environment Initiative builds on the seminal work instigated by the Healthy Aging publication and continues to develop a set of “ecological” or "systems' approaches to healthy aging.
We have created multiple educational materials that can be downloaded, and have presented at over 100 professional meetings and conferences. We are engaging with people at multiple levels of society and organizations that find common cause with our work, including those focusing on health throughout life as well as decision makers in government, business, and communities. Through a multidisciplinary approach to healthy living, our overarching goal is to educate, inspire and help integrate environmental health principles into mainstream health care and society as a basic approach to promote lifelong health and wellbeing.
 At right: Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, presented on healthy aging and the environment at
the 2010 annual conference of Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston.
Slide, Audio and Video Presentations on Healthy Aging and the Environment
Environmental Drivers of Chronic Disease – based on the key findings of the Healthy Aging report - complete with references and speaker notes to enable others to share this information. Supported audio presentation by medical co-author Ted Schettler MD MPH.
Healthy People Healthy Planet – 3-part video series by Jill Stein MD – developed for the University of Maryland School of Nursing, and video taped as part of the Boston University Superfund Research Project’s Environmental Health Nursing Collaborative.
Visit our webpage where you can download the full report, report chapters and presentations.
Other recent presentations you can view include:
Ted Schettler MD MPH “Environment and Health: An Eco-Social Perspective” at the Univ. of MA/Lowell. Watch the video online here.
National Council of Churches webinar - Ted Schettler MD MPH, Maria Valenti - see the NCC website
Aging, Environmental Health, Disabilities 5-part Teleconference Series now archived at AAIDD's teleconference page for materials and recordings of the calls.
(L-R) Erin Boles, MA Breast Cancer Coalition, Cindy Luppi, Clean Water Action and (far right) Maria Valenti meet with Erika Paulhus, staff for Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, on safer chemicals issues
Maria Valenti is the national coordinator of the Healthy Aging and the Environment Initiative of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. Prior to joining CHE is 2010, she served for nearly two decades in leadership positions with Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility where she helped develop and manage national and multi-state environmental health education and training programs including the In Harm’s Way Training Program for Health Professionals, the Pediatric Environmental Health Toolkit (materials development, pilot study, training program, and online CE course), and most recently Environmental Drivers of Chronic Disease, focusing on healthy aging across the lifespan. She is a co-author of several major peer-reviewed environmental health publications including:
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