VIDEO: Allergists ‘have the power’ to be advocates

Key takeaways:

• Patients worry about how the environment will impact their allergies.
• Health inequities leave many patients vulnerable to climate change.
• Allergists can help shape environmental and economic policy.

CHICAGO — Allergists can use their voices to change the environmental and economic policies that impact their patients, according to a presentation at the Global Food Allergy Prevention Summit.

“So many of our patients and families are asking about rises in exposures or heat stress or climate change-associated events. And pollens are rising. And food allergy is rising,” Kari C. Nadeau, MD, PhD, John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies and chair of the department of environmental health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Healio.

“We have the power to use our messages to help policy, to help public health, to help individual health,” she said. “By learning about what the contributions are from the environment to our patients with allergies, we can then best help them.”

The many patients who suffer from inequities in health would particularly benefit from advocacy, Nadeau said.

“I hope that all of us as allergists not only help each of our individual patients but also think about being voices of helping the future,” Nadeau said.

Reference:

• Nadeau K. Planetary health. Presented at: Global Food Allergy Prevention Summit; July 6-9, 2023; Chicago.