Improved educational materials and efforts are required to raise awareness and understanding of the interactions between weather extremes, climate variability, climate change, and health. This is true at multiple levels of education, including secondary schools, undergraduate and graduate schools, and health professional training. Incorporation of health into earth and environmental science courses helps students connect those sciences to societal impacts and needs. Conversely, teaching health impacts of weather and climate factors to health professionals expands their problem solving and public health preventive skills. This session will highlight recent innovations in teaching the interactions of health, weather and climate in various settings.

This session will broadly explore the relationships between a changing climate and the direct or indirect impacts to the health and well-being of humans.

2018 Haurwitz Lecture

Health providers and researchers need environmental data to study and understand the geographic, environmental, and meteorological differences in disease. Satellite remote sensing of the environment offers a unique vantage point that can fill in the gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. Demonstrating the need for collaborations between multidisciplinary research groups to develop the full potential of utilizing Earth Observations in studying health is essential in today's world. Satellite earth observations present a unique vantage point of the earth's environment from space, which offers a wealth of health applications for the imaginative investigators. As part of NASA approach and methodology they have used Earth Observation Systems and Applications for Health and Air Quality Models to provide a method for bridging gaps of environmental, spatial, and temporal data for tracking disease. This presentation how weather will provide an overview of projects dealing with infectious and waterborne diseases and how environmental variables affect human health.

The Robert T. Ryan Symposium will conclude with a cocktail reception welcoming symposium attendees, along with Bob's numerous colleagues and former interns from across the weather enterprise. With a short program hosted by symposium co-chair and AMS Fellow Veronica Johnson of WJLA in Washington, D.C., this casual event will honor Bob for his distinguished career, achievements, and contributions to the American Meteorological Society.

This session will explore the interactions among meteorology and vectorborne disease ecology and epidemiology. Presentations addressing the nexus of physical, social, and biological factors that influence vectorborne disease transmission are encouraged, as are those that emphasize best practices in transitioning basic research into early warning frameworks to support vector control and public health.

Exposures to various types of air pollutants, including particulates and aeroallergens, may vary significantly across time and space in both indoor and outdoor environments. Presentations addressing the interactions between human health, meteorology, and time−activity patterns across various time spans are encouraged, as well as those emphasizing best practices and/or the use of technological advancements for early warning systems and/or citizen science, and improved prediction for communication to the public.

This session will focus on increasing the effectiveness of communications to broadcast media about the health impacts of weather and climate events, including understanding which messages are more effective. New research will be highlighted that supports broadcast media efforts to communicate the individual and community impacts of climate-related events, to help people understand who is being affected and the actions that can be taken to reduce exposure to these events and to increase resilience when exposure occurs.

This panel is designed to untangle the web of interests and engagements between the public and private sectors for developing and using environmental-based forecasting to reduce public health risks and enhance health protection. The first step is in disaggregating the private sector so that engagements are more aligned with interests, incentives, and business models for ecological forecasting aimed at health protection. What are the differing interests of large corporations and small start-ups in this field?  Who engages whom and at what stage? What are the incentives and business models?

We encourage all attendees to take the opportunity to grab a snack and coffee and spend this extended afternoon break networking with colleagues and viewing the hundreds of posters on display in the poster hall. Poster displays are grouped by conference and change each day.

This session will explore novel methods and observational approaches to understand, predict, and minimize health issues due to extreme heat.

This session will showcase research that is building knowledge of indoor thermal environments, including the association between outdoor and indoor conditions, indoor health and well-being, measurements and models of the indoor environment, and the use and impact of services such as energy assistance and weatherization programs. Presentations discussing best practices for collaboration and communicating findings and risks across disciplinary and sectoral boundaries are encouraged.

Health early warning systems are changing. The scope of hazards is widening, data from an increasing range of sources are being incorporated, time scales are lengthening, and warning system skills are increasing. There is an increasing need to share information across disciplines and sectors about how systems are developed, implemented, and improved over time; about their costs and benefits; and regarding best practices in modeling, implementation, and communications. Presentations describing early warning system innovations are encouraged, as well as those addressing questions of early warning systems best practices, implementation indicators, costs and benefits, inclusion of novel data streams, and intersectoral partnerships. Systems need not focus directly on health impacts but can instead focus on warning of hazards that pose risks to health.

This session will directly address a common shortcoming of climate and health interventions: it is difficult to truly change decision-making processes, change behavior, and evaluate effectiveness. This session will feature current research on, and narratives about, and approaches to doing this in some of the most vulnerable communities. Each presentation will focus on a specific decision-maker class, a population they serve, and the methods they use to truly change understanding and compel action to support vulnerable communities. All presentations will also demonstrate how these changes are evaluated and how learning from each extreme heat event and enhancing resilience can be built into systems of climate information and decision making.

We encourage all attendees to take the opportunity to grab a snack and coffee and spend this extended afternoon break networking with colleagues and viewing the hundreds of posters on display in the poster hall. Poster displays are grouped by conference and change each day.