The 145th American Public Health Association conference drew 12,000 people to their annual gathering in Atlanta, Georgia for four days in early November 2017. This year the conference theme was “climate change and public health,” where dozens of workshops, panels and plenaries were organized to address that topic.
One of the panels there was titled “Women and climate change,” where three women made presentations on various aspects of how climate change impacts women first and worst, both in the U.S. and globally.
One of the speakers was Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Her talk dealt with the double jeopardy of race and gender that women of color face in human-induced natural disasters, such as hurricanes, droughts and floods. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus attended the panel discussion and brings us this excerpt of Patterson’s talk.
For more information on the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, visit naacp.org/issues/environmental-justice and naacp.org/environmental-climate-justice-about
