Title: An Integrative Approach to Patient Care in the Face of Climate Change
Presenter: Wynne Armand, MD
Associate Director, Mass General Center for the Environment and Health
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Presenter: Barbara Walker, PhD
Integrative Health and Performance Psychologist, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine
Watch the video recording here (1 hour)
Since launching our Osher Planetary Health Initiative in 2022 we have held ‘Earth Month’ presentations in April to mark Earth Day on April 22nd. Dr. David Victorson from Northwestern University was our inaugural speaker in 2022, Dr. Christopher Lowry, from Colorado University, Boulder was our 2023 presenter, Dr. Gregg Furie, Medical Directors for Climate and Sustainability at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was our 2024 presenter.
This year’s presentation with Drs. Wynne Armand from Mass General Brigham and Dr. Barbara Walker from the University of Cincinnati Osher Center examines the impact of climate change on health through patient cases, providing a framework for assessing climate-related health risks and discussing integrative approaches to care. It will also explore how environmental factors influence integrative medicine, including the role of nature-based therapies in supporting patient well-being, focusing on adapting these strategies for low-income communities and urban areas with limited access to green spaces
Speaker Bios:
Dr. Wynne Armand practices primary care at the MGH Chelsea Healthcare Center. She is a Distinguished Physician in the Division of General Internal Medicine at MGH, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, affiliated faculty at Harvard Chan Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE), and contributing editor at Harvard Health Publications. Dr. Armand co-directs Primary Care Office Insite (PCOI), a resource hub available to clinical teams and patients, focused on education and the optimization of primary care delivery across Mass General Brigham. She is an Associate Director at the Mass General Center for the Environment and Health, whose mission is to integrate sustainability into hospital operations, education, and research, and to advocate for policies that support a healthy environment for everyone.
Dr. Barbara Walker provides consultations to patients to facilitate their optimal effectiveness, whether for performance in sport or within their career, coping with illness or injury, and/or a desire to improve areas associated with lifestyle for overall health and well-being. She specializes in the use of biofeedback, mind-body techniques, high performance strategies, and lifestyle medicine as tools for teaching self-regulation. She is the Director of the Nature as Medicine program through the Osher Center for Integrative Health. Additionally, she teaches Sport and Positive Psychology, Nature-Based Therapies/ Ecopsychology and The Science and Practice of Mind-Body Medicine at the university.