Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu.

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Today, the impact of health care on climate and what can be done about it.

Shanda Demarest is a nurse and associate director of climate engagement and education at

healthcare without harm. She takes Dr. Josh Starfstein on an imaginary tour of a hospital,

identifying places and ways to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Let's listen.

Sandra, Demarest, thank you so much for joining me in public health on call. You are with an

organization called Health Care Without Harm. Can you tell me a little bit about what that organization

does? Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me.

So the legacy of health care without harm began about 25 years ago, and originally the focus

was mercury.

Mercury in healthcare was primarily showing up in thermometers, blood pressure cuff devices,

and the way that most hospitals were

getting rid of that equipment after its use was to burn it, typically on site. And so burning mercury

leads to poisoning of air, poisoning of water, patients in the same communities where these

hospitals were cited, were suffering from mercury poisoning.

And over the years, healthcare without harm has expanded from that original focus on mercury to other chemicals of concern.

And now our primary goal is protecting public health from climate change?

Climate change and health care. Not necessarily an obvious connection. Just at a high level,

...