No abstract

Background The time-limited nature of health and public health research fellowships poses a challenge to trainees’ and community partners’ efforts to sustain effective, collaborative, community-based participatory research (CBPR) relationships. Objectives This paper presents CBPR case studies of partnerships between health services research trainees and community organization leaders in a medium-sized city to describe how participation in the partnership altered community partners’ understanding and willingness to conduct research and to engage with research-derived data. Methods Trainees and faculty used participatory methods with community leaders to identify research questions, and conduct and disseminate research. Throughout the process, trainees and faculty included research capacity building of community partners as a targeted outcome. Community partners were asked to reflect retrospectively on community research capacity building in the context of CBPR projects. Reflections were discussed and categorized by the authorship team, who grouped observations into topics that may serve as a foundation for development of future prospective analyses. Results Important ideas shared include that trainee participation in CBPR may have an enduring impact on the community by increasing the capacity of community partners and agencies to engage in research beyond that which they are conducting with the current trainee. Conclusion We posit that CBPR with research trainees may have an additive effect on community research capacity when it is conducted in collaboration with community leaders and focuses on a single region. More research is needed to characterize this potential outcome.

No abstract

No abstract

Global environmental health and sustainable development: the role at Rio+20Saúde ambiental global e desenvolvimento sustentável: o papel na Rio+20Resumo A Conferência da ONU Rio +20 sobre desenvolvimento sustentável representa uma oportunidade crucial para colocar a saúde ambiental à frente da agenda de desenvolvimento sustentável. Bilhões de pessoas que vivem em países de baixa e média renda continuarão a ser afligidas por doenças evitáveis devido a exposições ambientais modificáveis causando sofrimento desnecessário e perpetuando um ciclo de pobreza. Processos de desenvolvimento econômico atuais, enquanto aliviam muitos problemas de saúde e sociais, estão cada vez mais ligados a ameaças de saúde ambiental, abrangendo desde poluição do ar e inatividade física até mudanças climáticas globais. Práticas de desenvolvimento sustentável tentam reduzir o impacto ambiental e deveriam, em teoria, reduzir as consequências adversas da saúde ambiental em relação ao desenvolvimento tradicional. Ainda assim, esses esforços podem também resultar em danos não intencionais e em pior desenvolvimento econômico se a nova "Economia Verde" não for cuidadosamente avaliada para impactos na saúde ambiental e ocupacional adversos. A comunidade da saúde ambiental tem um papel essencial para desempenhar, enfatizando estas relações enquanto líderes internacionais se reúnem para criar políti-cas de desenvolvimento sustentável. Palavras-chave Desenvolvimento sustentável, Saúde ambiental, Saúde global, Mudança climáti-ca, Rio +20 Abstract The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development represents a crucial opportunity to place environmental health at the forefront of the sustainable development agenda. Billions of people living in low-and middleincome countries continue to be afflicted by preventable diseases due to modifiable environmental exposures, causing needless suffering and perpetuating a cycle of poverty. Current processes of economic development, while alleviating many social and health problems, are increasingly linked to environmental health threats, ranging from air pollution and physical inactivity to global climate change. Sustainable development practices attempt to reduce environmental impacts and should, in theory, reduce adverse environmental health consequences compared to traditional development. Yet these efforts could also result in unintended harm and impaired economic development if the new "Green Economy" is not carefully assessed for adverse environmental and occupational health impacts. The environmental health community has an essential role to play in underscoring these relationships as international leaders gather to craft sustainable development policies.

Hotter global temperatures and increasingly variable climate patterns negatively affect human health, with a wide recognition that climate change is a major global health threat. Human activities, including those conducted in the orthopaedic operating room (OR), contribute to climate change by generating greenhouse gases that trap infrared radiation from the earth's surface. This review provides an overview of the environmental effect of the orthopaedic OR and efforts to address environmental sustainability in the OR. These concepts are presented with a particular focus on patient safety and cost savings because rollout of these efforts must be conducted with a pragmatic and patientcentered focus. Orthopaedic surgeons have an opportunity to lead efforts to improve environmental sustainability in the OR and thus contribute to efforts to curb climate change. Hotter global temperatures and increasingly variable climate patterns negatively affect human health, with a wide recognition that climate change is a major global health threat. Increasing temperatures lead to many negative environmental events, including increasingly severe natural disasters and unstable weather patterns. In addition, heat-related illnesses, disease related to poor air quality, and numerous other environment-related health problems are linked to global climate change. [1][2][3] The 2009 Lancet Climate Change Commission declared climate change to be the "biggest global health threat of the 21st century." 4 Human activities, including those conducted in the orthopaedic operating room (OR), contribute to climate change by generating greenhouse gases (GHGs) that trap infrared radiation from the earth's surface and thereby warm the planet. 4 Although the primary GHG generated by human activity is carbon dioxide caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, there are other GHGs generated in the OR that have even greater heat-trapping potential. 5 ORs contribute substantially to the healthcare industry's emissions because of the high amount of energy used and waste generated.Despite recent attention to climate change, including increased public awareness and multinational governmental summits, we are not on track to meet previously established goals of minimizing GHG emissions. 6 The United States is one of the top three contributors of GHGs, along with China and the