2024
What’s new
Science, Democracy & Public Health
Kristin Schafer, MA
Rachel Massey, ScD
At CHE, we work to bridge the gap between science and action. We collaborate with partners to amplify the latest research on environmental drivers of disease so decisions at all levels can be rooted in science, and thus more protective of public health.
This work takes place in the political context of the day, and our ability to make progress often depends on election outcomes. Civic engagement, a healthy democracy, and functioning government agencies are in fact critical to our efforts to promote environmental health.
CHE is a nonpartisan organization and we do not endorse specific candidates. We do encourage our community to vote — up and down the ballot — for leaders who value both independent science in policy decision making and the role of public agencies in protecting human health and the environment.
Science & health on the ballot
There’s a lot in the news about the urgency of acting on climate change. Given the scope of the challenges we face, addressing human health harms from both chemical contamination and climate change — as well as other environmental threats to our health — must be a priority in every political arena.
Reducing reliance on petrochemicals is an important piece of the solution, and will also help us make strides toward addressing long-standing environmental injustices. We need approaches that address multiple problems at once.
Our work highlighting the influence of corporate actors on environmental health science and policymaking is also linked to the political landscape. Those same corporate actors often invest heavily in political candidates that support their interests.
There is growing recognition of the importance of “commercial determinants of health,” described by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “private sector activities that affect people’s health, directly or indirectly, positively or negatively.” WHO underscores the fact that the private sector’s influence on health policy can influence public health outcomes:
“Some commercial actors work to capture branches of government in order to prevent or weaken regulation of their products and services, leading to unregulated activity, limiting their liability and bypassing the threat of litigation . . . ”
This relationship between science, politics, and industry actors is longstanding and complex. A three-part podcast by Nature magazine in 2020, “Stick to the Science,” brought together historians, political scientists, and others to explore issues at this important intersection.
The work of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science in Democracy also focuses on this relationship, and makes a convincing case that both science and democracy should serve the public interest:
“To be effective, our government’s decisions must be grounded in the best available science. To be just and equitable, these decisions must be free from political interference and everyone in the community must have a voice in their making.”
Why elections matter
Policy change takes a long time. The effort to improve regulation of chemicals in the US has now been under way for decades. The time scales are mismatched — finalizing a regulation takes years, while exposure to a toxic chemical or other preventable hazard can change a person’s life in a single day. Yet when we are able to achieve changes, there are direct positive impacts for people’s health.
To highlight a couple of examples, EPA’s action to regulate methylene chloride under the Toxic Substances Control Act — including a prohibition on distributing this highly toxic chemical for consumer uses — will help to avoid tragic and entirely preventable deaths. And EPA’s recent emergency suspension of the neurotoxic pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate will protect fetal brain development for generations to come. This pesticide has posed particularly severe hazards for the families of farmworkers.
Chemical regulation is just one arena in which elections make enormous differences. Another example is OSHA’s proposed heat standard, published in August of this year. If finalized and adopted, this standard will protect tens of millions of people from dangerous and sometimes lethal conditions in the workplace. Whether and how the standard will be finalized will depend in part on the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
Years ago, OSHA adopted an ergonomics standard, many years in the making, which would have protected many workers from crippling musculoskeletal injuries. Due to the outcome of an election, the standard was permanently repealed.
A recent story in Inside Climate News unpacks how the outcome of the upcoming election will influence our response to the plastics crisis. Competing plastics bills, encompassing very different visions, are currently in Congress.
Vote, then stay engaged
For the most part, policy decisions like these don’t make it into the popular discourse as we choose our leaders. Yet they can literally determine who comes home alive at the end of a work day, and they shape our children’s bodies and brains.
It’s important not only to conduct scientific research and communicate its results, but also to elect leaders who are willing to put the evidence into practice in ways that serve the public interest. With all that in mind, we encourage you to vote, and if you can, volunteer for a local, state, or federal campaign that matters to you.
And then, stay engaged with those elected officials once they’re in office, so we can continue to make progress in our collective efforts to promote environmental health.
