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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Nurses Key Voices for Healthy Environment

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Monday, January 16, 2017   

INDIANAPOLIS -- Nurses can make a difference in the fight against climate change, says a new report by the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.

Researchers found that climate change impacts people's health directly through increased incidence of heat-related illnesses. But it also harms people indirectly, by worsening air quality and causing drought, which hurts agriculture and the economy.

Katie Huffling, a co-author of the report and the director at the alliance, said nurses usually prefer to prevent disease rather than treat it, so it makes sense that they join the fight to slow climate change.

"We lay out some ways that nurses can start taking action,” Huffling said; "whether it's working with their hospitals on energy efficiency and sustainable energy, to things like talking to policymakers about why this issue is so important to the health of their constituents."

The report also urged nurses to reduce their own carbon footprint, help their communities prepare for climate change-related emergencies, and campaign to include education about climate change and its health effects in the university curricula for nursing degrees.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy signed a memorandum of understanding that created a framework for projects to educate nurses about climate change.

Cythnia Stone, associate professor at the Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health, said climate change is already taking a toll on the most vulnerable Hoosiers. Nurses are expected to take care of them, she said, but they aren't always asked to sit at the table when it comes to planning solutions and preparing for emergencies.

"There's increased air pollution and increased asthma rates,” Stone said, "so we want to be part of both preventing and preparing as well as treatment and recovery. "

The report came out of a summit late last year by the Obama administration called the "2016 White House Summit on Climate Change, Health and Nursing."



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