JONATHAN PATZ, MD, MPH
Thursday, October 26 4 p.m.
Galvin Auditorium, Room 283
“Health Risks from Global Climate Change to Local Land Use Practices: demand for new training – the ‘CHANGE’ IGERT program in coupled human-natural systems”
Jonathan Patz, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences, is PI of the new CHANGE IGERTat the Nelson Institute, University of Wisconsin at Madison.
The World Health Organization concluded that the climatic changes that have occurred since the mid 1970s could already be causing over 150,000 deaths per year, mainly in developing countries. The human health risk resulting from climate change is expected to more than double by the year 2030. Many health outcomes and diseases are sensitive to climate, including: heat-related mortality or morbidity; air pollution-related illnesses; infectious diseases, particularly those indirectly transmitted via water (water-borne) and by insect or rodent vectors (vector-borne); and refugee health type issues linked to forced population migration. Yet, changing landscapes can significantly affect local weather more acutely than long-term climate change. Land cover change can influence micro-climatic conditions including temperature, evapotranspiration, and surface runoff, key determinants to the emergence of many infectious diseases.
These separate and synergistic processes (climate and land use change) will be presented –including ethical implications– along with a brief introduction to the new NSF IGERT program of the Nelson Institute, UW–Madison. Through a Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE) program, we will integrate natural, social science, and humanistic research to better understand global environmental issues. The certificate’s three-course sequence will also give environmental professionals and graduate students training in environmental systems science and ethnographic and historical approaches to better understand the human impact of global environmental risks at a local scale, as well as practical skills in interdisciplinary team building, effective problem definition, and broad-based communication. Without these skills, it is impossible to analyze or promote environmental sustainability.
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Jonathan Patz’s areas of research investigation include the effects of climate change on heat waves, air pollution and water and vector-borne infectious diseases, as well as the link between deforestation and the resurgence of malaria in the Amazon. He earned medical board certification in both occupational/environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and his Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. In 2005, he was awarded an Aldo Leopold Leadership fellowship.