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Heat Illness in Virginia

Climate Prep Week

For Climate Prep Week, hear from Dr. Paulson, MD, FAAP, founding member of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action to learn about the dangers of and how to keep safe during extreme heat events.

Excess heat is one of the most visible manifestations of climate change. Excess heat has significant adverse health impacts, these include heat cramps, which can progress to dehydration, which can progress to heat exhaustion, which can progress to heat stroke. Those who are most vulnerable include individuals at both ends of the age spectrum, the young and the elderly, individuals who work or exercise outdoors, individuals who are low income or of lower socioeconomic status, and individuals which certain specific health conditions like diabetes and heart disease. Dr. Paulson will discuss how climate change is making Virginia and elsewhere hotter. He will describe the medical problems associated with heat exposure and how to decrease the risk of heat related illness.  

As part of the talk, a number of attendees will receive a stainless steel water bottle.

Registration is preferred. Contact Megan at mzimmerman@alexlibraryva.org for more information. 

Jerome A. Paulson, MD, FAAP is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics and Emeritus Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health at the George Washington University Schools of Medicine and of Public Health. He created the American Academy of Pediatrics' Program on Climate Change and Health. He is a consultant to the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and is a founding member of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action. He is a past chair of the executive committee of the Council on Environmental Health of the AAP and past Medical Director for the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units – East. He served on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the US EPA. Dr. Paulson co-created, and for a number of years lead, the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the Environment, a pediatric environmental health specialty unit serving Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Dr. Paulson received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry with honors and with general honors from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. He received an MD degree from Duke University in Durham, NC. He did his pediatric residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospitals and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He also completed a fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics at Sinai Hospital. 

Learn more at Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action

Climate Prep Week

Alexandria Library, as a Climate Resilience Hub, participates in Climate Preparation Week. September 24-30 is week of learning, service, and actions to better prepare our communities for the extreme weather events and the effects of climate change. This year's theme, The Planet's Health & Yours: Facing the Invisible Impact of Climate Change, explores the many ways that extreme weather and climate change manifest outside of the most noticeable disasters and disruptions. From the toll that climate anxiety & grief can take on mental health to how the invisible threat of extreme heat is most powerfully felt in historically redlined and disenfranchised communities. 

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