Jessica Dolan: Healthy environment makes people healthier | Op-eds
NEW HAMPSHIRITES have firsthand experience with the worst impacts of climate change, and as a nurse I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness what the worsening environmental crisis has meant to public health.
In fact, New Hampshire has experienced five extreme weather events from 2010 to 2020, costing the state up to $500 million in damages. Not only are these events terrifying and traumatic, leading to loss of homes and jobs, but they also have caused major spillages of toxins into the environment that have exacerbated preexisting conditions and burdened people with new illnesses.
You can’t have healthy people on a sick planet. This belief is what led to the formation of a Sustainability Committee at our hospital and ultimately a connection with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. As nurses, we are so often the first responders when it comes to environmental health. We know that a toxic environment yields higher rates of disease, infection, and respiratory illness.
I fight for a healthier climate because it aligns with my values as a human and a professional. But I know that nurses can’t take on this fight alone, we need bold leadership and sweeping legislation from Washington if we’re going to address the crisis we now face.
President Joe Biden has introduced a slew of big solutions in the form of the American Jobs Plan. In its original form, not only would this plan put our country on track to tackle the climate crisis, it also holds the potential to revitalize our infrastructure, improve public health, and provide millions of good, family-supporting jobs to American workers. We need our members of Congress to put pen to paper to make all of these strong ideas a reality so that New Hampshire communities, and all Americans, can reap the benefits.
Acting to reduce pollution will improve the health of the patients I see, especially when it comes to asthma and respiratory health. New Hampshire has some of the worst rates of asthma in the country. In our state alone, asthma results in 4,000 emergency room visits and $177 million in direct medical costs annually. Knowing that there are policies that can alleviate this issue for children, adults, and families, nurses like myself believe it is imperative that Congress do something to protect our patients. Asthma rates have only been on the rise in recent decades — and with air pollution on the uptick nationwide and our infrastructure crumbling, cases are bound to increase unless we do something.
The American Jobs Plan, as initially written, seeks to correct long-standing inequities when it comes to the impacts of pollution. It allocates 40% of the benefits of investments to communities that have historically borne the brunt of air pollution, in line with the Justice40 Initiative. When polled, 64% of residents in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, our state’s battleground district, said they supported this allocation to marginalized communities.
Nationally, communities of color experience disproportionate rates of asthma and other respiratory issues. This isn’t happenstance, it’s environmental injustice, the result of centuries of racist policymaking. We need these investments to uplift the communities for which dirty vehicle pollution has been most disastrous. Every child deserves breathable air.
New Hampshire received a C- on a recent White House report card for the state of our roads, bridges, and other parts of our transportation network. This grade reflects inadequate public transportation, hours spent stalled in traffic, and higher vehicle pollution rates — which leads to more asthma. The American Jobs Plan makes a $600 billion investment to transform our nation’s infrastructure and, like so many states, New Hampshire is in desperate need of this investment for the future of our environment and public health.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen led by example when she helped introduce the Clean Energy for America Act, which puts appropriate funding towards tackling the climate crisis. While the bill now languishes, she and our other leaders in Washington must continue to lead the charge by putting their full support behind the American Jobs Plan as originally outlined to ensure that the legislation that makes it through Congress is just as powerful and effective as President Joe Biden’s proposal. Our public health hangs in the balance.
Jessica Dolan is a RN at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover. She lives in Portsmouth.
