Understanding Social & Environmental Issues that Affect Public Health

Policy Brief
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Professor's Name
January 11, 2021
Understanding the relationship between social and environmental issues that affect public health is important for any healthcare professional. It allows him to fully participate in the discussions about the matter by learning, knowing, and participating in efforts to address it. Accordingly, several sources indicate some of the common and recent issues that other healthcare professionals are facing. In this policy brief, the author would like to focus on one media release by the American Public Health Association, which discusses the #ActOnClimate movement.
Policy Brief
The policy proposal provided by the APHA on the #ActOnClimate movement focuses on the roles of healthcare providers and public health professionals. Initially, the policy provided several direct and indirect benefits of actions and decisions that could help preserve the environment. APHA noted that everyone has a role and responsibility in curbing climate change by making small decisions that could benefit the environment. Specifically, the policy noted that these changes could take on all levels, including the national, regional, or local levels. Finally, the article focused on the importance of public health professionals in dealing with climate change on the population level. One example provided by the organization was policymakers' education, with particular reference to the health effects of climate change on the general population.
Problem Statement
The problem statement for this policy is whether or not public health professionals' efforts would be enough to educate policymakers about the need to deal with climate change and its related issues.
The author has noted this as the 'problem statement' for this article because of the complex dynamics between climate change policies, politics, and the economy, among others. Studies have shown that climate change policies have always been influenced by politics and the economy, especially when such policies go against certain political agendas CITATION Nag17 \l 1033 (Nagoda & Nightingale, 2017). This simply means that public health professionals should also assess external factors that might affect their efforts and utilize opportunities to maximize the returns of their actions.
Nonetheless, this policy would include various efforts and collaboration of different stakeholders. Studies have shown that addressing a wide-scale problem like climate change requires collaboration on all levels (international, national, individual, etc.) to foster a truly effective change CITATION Cla15 \l 1033 (Clarke Boyd & Hume, 2015). For example, another study done by Legagneux et al. (2018) shows that discrepancy between media portrayal of climate change (and biodiversity) issues in contrast to findings by scientific literature could negatively influence the decisions and actions ...