Children, Climate Justice, and Lessons From Puerto Rico.
Huerta-Montañez G, Bernstein A.
JAMA Pediatr. 2023 01 01. 177(1):13-15. PMID: 36383470
Interim Director, Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment
Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Pediatrics-Boston Children's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Aaron Bernstein is the Interim Director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE), a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bernstein focuses on the health impacts of the climate crisis on children’s health and advancing solutions to address its causes to improve the health and wellbeing of children around the world.
Dr. Bernstein is an author on the Human Health chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a Congressionally mandated report that evaluates the impacts of climate change on humans and natural systems in the United States led by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. He regularly testifies before Congress on the child health impacts of climate change, drawing from his personal experience as a pediatrician having to treat children with breathing difficulties, vector-borne diseases, and trauma from natural disasters. He is a trusted voice for major news outlets, providing interviews and expertise to reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, CNN, and The Guardian, and writing articles for the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, and the Boston Globe, among others.
Dr. Bernstein leads Climate MD, a Harvard Chan C-CHANGE program to encourage physicians to transform climate change from an issue dominated by politics and concerns about the future or faraway places, to one that matters to every person’s health here and now. He is the course director for Human Health and Global Environmental Change and created the HarvardX course “The Health Effects of Climate Change” which explores how climate change influences health through its effects on air quality, nutrition, infectious diseases, and human migration as well as solutions to the climate crisis. Through this course, thousands of students from over 100 countries have learned how climate change directly impacts their lives, and what they can do to become part of the solution.
Dr. Bernstein serves as Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health and Climate Change. He serves on the External Advisory Board of the Dalio Center for Health Justice at New York Presbyterian Hospital, is Chair of the Board of Directors at the U.S. Green Building Council, and is on the Board of Advisors at Parents Magazine as an environmental health specialist. Previously, Dr. Bernstein served on the Board of Scientific Counselors to the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
With Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Chivian, Dr. Bernstein co-authored and co-edited the Oxford University Press book, Sustaining Life, which received the distinction of best biology book of 2008 from the Library Journal, and which has been published in several foreign language editions.
In 2015, he was awarded a Lokey-Businesswire visiting professorship at Stanford University and has also been a visiting professor at Columbia University. Dr. Bernstein has been a member of the Harvard President’s Climate Change Task Force and co-Chairs the University Food Standards Committee.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, he received graduate degrees in medicine (MD) and public health (MPH), from the University of Chicago and Harvard University, respectively. He is a recipient of Stanford University’s Firestone Medal for Research and a Harvard University Zuckerman Fellowship.
MPH
Harvard School of Public Health
MD
University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine
Huerta-Montañez G, Bernstein A.
JAMA Pediatr. 2023 01 01. 177(1):13-15. PMID: 36383470
Alahmad B, Khraishah H, Royé D, Vicedo-Cabrera AM, Guo Y, Papatheodorou SI, Achilleos S, Acquaotta F, Armstrong B, Bell ML, Pan SC, de Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho M, Colistro V, Dang TN, Van Dung D, De' Donato FK, Entezari A, Guo YL, Hashizume M, Honda Y, Indermitte E, Íñiguez C, Jaakkola JJK, Kim H, Lavigne E, Lee W, Li S, Madureira J, Mayvaneh F, Orru H, Overcenco A, Ragettli MS, Ryti NRI, Saldiva PHN, Scovronick N, Seposo X, Sera F, Silva SP, Stafoggia M, Tobias A, Garshick E, Bernstein AS, Zanobetti A, Schwartz J, Gasparrini A, Koutrakis P.
Circulation. 2023 01 03. 147(1):35-46. PMID: 36503273
Stowell JD, Sun Y, Spangler KR, Milando CW, Bernstein A, Weinberger KR, Sun S, Wellenius GA.
Environ Res Health. 2023 Mar 01. 1(1):015002. PMID: 36337257
Tarabochia-Gast AT, Michanowicz DR, Bernstein AS.
Geohealth. 2022 Oct. 6(10):e2022GH000651. PMID: 36203949
Bernstein AS, Stevens KL, Koh HK.
JAMA. 2022 08 02. 328(5):419-420. PMID: 35834232
Barrak Alahmad, Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, Kai Chen, Eric Garshick, Aaron S Bernstein, Joel Schwartz, Petros Koutrakis.
Environmental Research Letters. 2022.
Vora NM, Hannah L, Lieberman S, Vale MM, Plowright RK, Bernstein AS.
Nature. 2022 05. 605(7910):419-422. PMID: 35551284
Bernstein AS, Sun S, Weinberger KR, Spangler KR, Sheffield PE, Wellenius GA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2022 Apr. 130(4):49002. PMID: 35471948
Bernstein AS, Ando AW, Loch-Temzelides T, Vale MM, Li BV, Li H, Busch J, Chapman CA, Kinnaird M, Nowak K, Castro MC, Zambrana-Torrelio C, Ahumada JA, Xiao L, Roehrdanz P, Kaufman L, Hannah L, Daszak P, Pimm SL, Dobson AP.
Sci Adv. 2022 Feb 04. 8(5):eabl4183. PMID: 35119921
Sullivan JK, Lowe KE, Gordon IO, Colbert CY, Salas RN, Bernstein A, Utech J, Natowicz MR, Mehta N, Isaacson JH.
Acad Med. 2022 02 01. 97(2):188-192. PMID: 34432714
Speaking to The Boston Globe, several experts from Harvard Chan School offered their perspectives on how hospitals and health systems will cope with continuing climate change and extreme weather events.
Days that are very hot or very cold increased the risk of death among people with cardiovascular diseases, according to large long-term international study co-authored by experts from Harvard Chan School.
A toolkit developed by the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard Chan School (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) and Americares aims to protect people on the front lines of climate change.
Days of extreme heat driven by climate change are disproportionately harming Black and Hispanic children with asthma, according to experts.
Congress’ recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes about $400 billion to address climate and clean energy over the next decade, which is expected to help significantly reduce U.S. fossil fuel emissions and reduce health harms.