Environment Section meeting for the 2021 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Project Summary/Abstract The American Public Health Association (APHA) will host on October 24-27 2021 its annual meeting and exposition in Denver, Colorado. The theme for this year's conference, with an anticipated attendance of over 12,000 in total, is "Creating the Healthiest Nation: Strengthening Social Connectedness". Sections are the primary professional units of the 25,000 member Association, conducting activities that promote the mission and fulfill the goals of APHA. While the annual event features overarching sessions, the 27 Sections plan the majority of the conference sessions. The Environment Section's goal this year is to foster interest in environmental health, increase student involvement, and provide educational offerings on a wide range of environmental health topics, especially related to environmental justice and climate change. Ultimately, the Section strives to offer a wide variety of sessions, posters, plenary sessions, and special events to a diverse audience representing academics, health professionals, community members, and students. Our specific aims for this proposal are: 1) Build the next generation of environmental health leaders by providing a mechanism for underrepresented students to attend the meeting; 2) Foster mentorship between students and public health professionals, particularly around environmental justice and environmental health science; 3) Advance the promotion of translating data to knowledge and action by connecting students to a forum (i.e. a community of practice). Through this grant, we will financially support the participation of underrepresented students in all that the annual meeting has to offer. We will leverage a network of 1,500 academic, governmental, and community-based environmental health professionals to directly promote the conference scholarship to a wide range of schools across the United States. In accomplishing this we will create a professional pipeline within APHA for underrepresented students geared towards environmental health science careers. In return, sponsoring students provides us the opportunity to engage with the next generation of environmental health sciences and through them, emerging environmental health issues and a diversity of thought, perspectives, and approaches. As such we aim to support NIEHS's mission to conduct and support the very best environmental health sciences in alignment with real-world public health needs, and to translate science findings into knowledge that can inform real-life individual and public health outcomes.