Champion Stories: Jesse Berman

Meet Jesse Berman.

Jesse is an environmental epidemiologist and assistant professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. An environmental epidemiologist is someone who studies how the environment (including climate, the built environment, our communities, and the air and water we drink) impacts human health. Jesse’s research focuses on understanding the health impacts of air pollution as well as extreme weather and climate.

How does your work deal with climate change and health?

Jesse: For epidemiologists, one of our roles is to understand how environmental disasters and extreme weather events impact health. Without knowing how climate events impact health now, it’s very difficult to prepare for future impacts when natural disasters and extreme weather will be more frequent and severe. My research focuses on understanding how environmental exposures impact health and who might be most vulnerable to them. We know that natural disasters will impact everyone, but those impacts are going to be inequitable. Understanding who might be most vulnerable is key to helping mitigate the worst impacts of climate-related disasters. In addition, environmental epidemiologists are digging into understanding future climate change scenarios and how this will affect low, medium, and high likelihood climate events.

How does your work promote environmental justice and health equity?

Jesse: Environmental health and health equity are critical to all types of environmental health research. From a global perspective, nations with the least available resources are going to be disproportionately affected by climate change. Low lying island nations in the Pacific are being inundated by rising sea levels, which not only impact their homes, but also contaminate drinking water and arable land. In Bangladesh and India, extreme rainfall events are causing massive flooding this summer. These populations don’t have the resources to relocate individuals and provide fresh drinking water, medical resources, and emergency aid. If we take a more local perspective, we observe multiple inequities that exist here in the United States and Minnesota. For example, there are many people who depend on water resources for farming, especially in a state like Minnesota with a large agricultural population. Farmers are an explicit example of a working population that might be more vulnerable to extreme environmental conditions, like drought. Even among this vulnerable group, there are further disparities. The Star Tribune had an article last year discussing Hmong farmers outside of the Twin Cities. This is a farming population where individuals farm relatively small plots that don’t have access to irrigation, and don’t necessarily fall under the rubric of receiving subsidies for crop failures resulting from extreme weather events. Here’s a community that slipped through the cracks in terms of being disproportionately affected by drought, but not having the voice and resources to mitigate some of the worse effects, and that’s just one example.

Why do you think it’s important that professors and researchers integrate climate change into their work?

Jesse: It’s important to integrate climate change into our work because it affects all of us. Climate change is not something that any one person can hide from. One of the difficulties about climate change is that it is slow moving. It’s challenging to conceptualize what might be happening globally when outside your window everything seems to be fine. As public health practitioners, we need to do a better job of communicating that these events are taking place and that it’s critical for us to address them, even if the consequences of climate change aren’t apparent right now.

What is something impactful that those in public health and academia can do to protect people’s health in the face of climate change?

Jesse: One of the things that we need to do, especially from a public health and medical standpoint, is adaptation. We know that climate change is taking place. Reversing it at this stage will be very difficult to do, not to say that it can’t be done. Adapting to the effects of climate change is one of the things we can take immediate action against. An example of an action we can take is creating early warning system plans to alert people of high air pollution and heat wave events. In particular, we should let vulnerable groups, such as construction workers, children with asthma, and the elderly, know the risk of extreme weather exposures. At the organization level and practitioner level, we can inform vulnerable patients that they have to be aware of environmental exposures and take climate-related health warnings seriously.

What do you think are some of the biggest climate and health challenges going forward?

Jesse: I think that the biggest challenges for climate and health is the politicization of the issue. As a scientist, the existence of climate change is no more debatable to me than the question of “does gravity exist?” The science is well established. Climate change is happening now, and it will happen tomorrow whether we act or not. With every day that we delay taking action, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and absorbed in the oceans, and the amount of methane release from melting tundra increases. Climate action is something that shouldn’t be dividing us, but something that should bring us together to address. We’ve shown that our nation can do incredible things when we put our minds to it, but they’ve always come as a result of people working together.

On the flip side, does anything give you hope for the future of climate and health?

Jesse: One thing that gives me hope for the climate and health space is the opportunity I have, as a professor, to interact with younger generations. There is almost a universal acceptance among my students that climate change is taking place and that they (and their kids, grandkids, etc.) are going to be most affected. I see a younger generation who is demanding climate action and recognizing the importance of addressing health disparities as part of an equitable path forward. I see students in MPH programs who decide to go to law school and become environmental lawyers. While the news may say there is reluctance to address climate change, it is not a trend I observe among my students.

How has climate change affected you or your community personally?

Jesse: I have two young children, and last year during the wildfire smoke events in Minnesota, we pulled them in from playing outdoors and attending an outside camp. We usually go to the playground almost every day, but we stayed in those days. I know it’s only a short period of time, but that’s an example of how we pay attention to what’s going on and adjust our behavior to keep our family safe. So, take those heat wave warnings, and take those air quality warnings seriously.

How can someone without experience in public health or climate change help highlight climate change as a public health issue?

Jesse: The best way the public can help is by not being afraid to talk about climate change. Politics don’t matter one bit in terms of which area is going to be hit by the next storm, drought, or wildfire. All of us are vulnerable to climate effects, so it’s not something we should be afraid to talk about. The more we talk about it, the less scary and abstract it’s going to be.

The opinions expressed in these stories are the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of MDH.