By Jeff Wise, Program Director, Health and Environmental Funders Network

Health Affairs recently published this blog by Jeff Wise of Health and Environmental Funders Network discussing how to improve health and equity while addressing climate change.

This post came after the November 2017 meeting in Detroit, Michigan: “Charting a Climate, Health, and Equity Agenda”, a gathering of five funder networks that convened almost eighty funders from across the sector to discuss the relationships between climate, health, and equity work in the field.

“Foundations are often criticized for “working in siloes”—approaching complicated social problems through a narrow lens. For a complicated issue like climate change, which has multiple causes and consequences, considering that bigger picture may point to solutions. This idea was highlighted by the Lancet Commission on Climate and Health, which pointed to climate change as being simultaneously a threat to fifty years of public health gains and this generation’s greatest public health opportunity.”

Read the full blog, click here. 

The Funders’ Network co-sponsored this event.

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Jeff Wise
Program Director, Health and Environmental Funders Network
jwise@hefn.org

Jeff Wise joined HEFN as its Program Director in 2015.  He’s responsible for directing the organization’s issue related work.  From toxics to fracking and from drinking water to climate change and health, Jeff directs HEFN’s events and programs in these areas and helps HEFN members collaborate on strategy.  Jeff comes to HEFN with deep experience in environmental policy and advocacy.  After having served as associate director of global environmental affairs at the White House, Jeff was the  policy director for the National Environmental Trust where he managed many of the organization’s environmental health campaigns.  Most recently, Jeff directed several environmental projects at the Pew Charitable Trusts, and he directed the nonprofit and foundation advocacy training program at the Alliance for Justice. Jeff holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in natural resource economics from Stanford, and a B.A. in English Literature from Brown.