In a new interview with Ramona Trovato, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NewPublicHealth continues its conversation series about the National Prevention Strategy. The strategy was released last year by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, to help create a healthier and more fit nation.

Earlier this year the Surgeon General’s office released the Strategy’s National Action Plan, designed to show how the 17 Federal Agencies charged with advancing the National Prevention Strategy are implementing its vital components. The EPA has several partner initiatives critical to the health of the nation, which include:

• Partnership for Sustainable Communities: The EPA is a partner, together with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in this partnership to help communities improve access to affordable housing and transportation while protecting the environment, all critical aspects of healthy living.
• Green Ribbon Schools: EPA is a partner with the Department of Education and other agencies for this recognition award that encourages state education agencies and schools to recognize the links between education, health, and the environment, and to make all three of these areas a priority.
• Safe routes to school: Agencies including HHS, EPA and the Department of Transportation support efforts to improve the ability of students to walk and bicycle to school safely.
• Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children: This multi-agency task force, which includes the EPA, recommends strategies for protecting children's health and safety, including specific priorities around asthma, unintentional injuries, lead poisoning, cancer, and environmental health in schools.
• Aging Initiative: This EPA initiative aims to prioritize environmental health hazards that affect older persons, focus on “smart growth” principals to support active aging, and examine the environmental impact of an aging population, and encourage civic involvement among older persons in their communities to reduce hazards. 

Ramona Trovato shared with us EPA’s long history of health promotion and its current efforts to help improve population health as a member agency of the National Prevention Council.

NewPublicHealh: How does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) align itself with the National Prevention Strategy?

Ramona Trovato: The EPA is really pleased to be part of the National Prevention Council and the National Prevention Strategy. We firmly believe in preventing ill health and in promoting wellness, and it’s something that matters to us in all the work that we do. We have very successfully partnered with Department of Health and Human Services in the past and with a number of other federal agencies including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to benefit the public’s health.

NPH: What are the key roles of the Environmental Protection Agency in protecting the nation’s health?

The Environmental Protection Agency is inviting people to write six-word “micro essays” about Earth in observance of Earth Day this Sunday. Many of the micro-essays will be featured on the EPA home page and on the EPA’s social media channel.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote: Healthier families, cleaner communities, stronger America.

NewPublic Health’s entry: Live, Learn, Work, Play and Breathe.

The EPA has a webpage devoted to Earth Day(and the days beyond—when we should still be decreasing our energy usage, reusing and recycling as much as we can, and using human-powered transportation whenever possible). Other EPA resources include:

• A map of Earth Day activities throughout the nation—for example, Birmingham, Ala., will hold the country’s largest Earth Day parade, while Georgia Tech’s Earth Day celebration includes eco-friendly giveaways, recycling opportunities, a clothing swap, an office supply exchange and organic popcorn.
• Join an EPA discussion group on the environment or start your own.
• Choose Five things to commit to doing to help protect the environment
• Sign on for EPA’s Green Tips such as, "Leaving your car at home twice a week can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 1,600 pounds per year."

>>Bonus Earth Day activity: The American Public Health Association (APHA) recently held an Emergency Stockpile Recipe Contest. The contest was part of the APHA’s Get Ready Campaign, which helps Americans become prepared for disasters and emergencies. What makes the recipes so Earth Day-appropriate is that none require an energy source for preparation and are made from foods you’d stockpile for an emergency (be sure to replace any cans or packages you take out of your stash, though). The winners:

• Easy Orange Curry Chickpeas
• Black Bean Casserole
• Aloha Chicken Poppers
• Troubled Times Trifle

>>Weigh In: What are you doing for Earth Day?

New Booster Approved For Adults 65 and Older

A single booster to prevent diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (pertussis) has been approved for adults 65 and older, according to a news release from the Food and Drug Administration. Previously, three injections were required for additional protection against the three diseases for this age group.

Survey Finds High Rate of Spanking in North Carolina Kids Under 2

A recent survey by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that thirty percent of North Carolina mothers of children less than 2 two years old say they have spanked their children in the last year. The survey was published in Frontiers in Child and Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry. The researchers say the survey is concerning being spanking has been associated with poor self-esteem; impaired parent–child relationships; child and adult mental health problems; substance abuse; and an increased likelihood of spanking one’s own children.

EPA Finalizes New Smokestack Emissions Rule

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued final regulations aimed at cutting air pollution from power plants in more than 20 states. The new rules will require that the power plants install new technology to reduce the levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that travel across states via wind and weather.

Pre-Swimming Showers Underenforced by Parents

Only about a quarter of parents make their kids shower before spending time at a water park, according to a survey from the University of Michigan. Showering is crucial because it can remove many germs from a child’s skin that can then spread to others playing in the water.

>> NEWS ROUNDUPS: Catch up on previous stories you may have missed

In a recent blog post for the Public Health Law Network, Kathleen Dachille, director of the Network’s Eastern Region, writes that on the television show Battlestar Galactica, “frak” is a dirty word.

Nowadays, for some in the U.S., “fracking”, a natural gas extraction process that relies on blasting chemically treated water to remove the gas from rock, has become an unpleasant term as well.

Critics say the chemically treated water used for fracking (also known as hydrofracturing) can contaminate both drinking water and the environment and may also increase seismic activity and tree clearing that exposes rock, harms rural roads and can create chemical run-off in drinking wells. Fracking's proponents, on the other hand, contend that natural gas is considered a cleaner-burning energy source than oil or coal and is safer than nuclear energy.

Fracking has received increased attention recently, including a series of articles in the New York Times, a study by the Environmental Protection Agency, and an essay in the Huffington Post by actor Mark Ruffalo. It's also the subject of a recent documentary called Gasland.

To help explore the issues surrounding fracking, including recent legislation, health hazards, policies to protect the public’s health from risks, and the reactions of the public health community, the Public Health Law Network is hosting a webinar called “Fracking – Is It Just a Dirty Word?: Environmental and Public Health Considerations of Hydrofracturing, on Thursday May 19th from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (ET). Webinar presenters include Josh Fox, Gasland filmmaker, and Conrad D. Volz, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., assistant professor of environmental & occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh.

The webinar is part of the free Public Health Law Webinar Series, sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics; the Public Health Law Association; the Public Health Law Network; and the Public Health Law Research Program.

Register for the webinar by 2 p.m. (ET) on Tuesday May 17. Information will be sent to those registered prior to the webinar.

The current radiation crisis in Japan – while having no immediate impact on public health in the U.S. – has spurred domestic health officials to bolster their knowledge of what to do in a radiation emergency.

Today – from noon to 2 pm ET – the American Medical Association will host a free webinar on radiation emergencies.

Webinar speakers include Mary Selecky, secretary of health for the state of Washington — which has detected low levels of radiation from the Japan crisis, but no health threat so far — and Doran Christensen, associate director of the Department of Energy’s Radiation Emergency Assistance Center in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Immediate and long-term public health responsibilities in a radiation emergency.
• Individual and group preparation for a radiation emergency.
• Different types of ionizing radiation and their medical implications.
• Diagnosis and treatment for radiation exposure.

Webinar participants will be able to ask questions of the speakers during the last half hour. The webinar will then be archived and available on the AMA website before the end of April.

A number of organizations and news outlets have ongoing resources to help understand what is unfolding in Japan.

• The Environmental Protection Agency is showing monitoring data for both air and water.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posts regular updates on the radiation emergency on its “What’s New” page.
• The New York Times has a dynamically updated topic page pulling together coverage of the situation in Japan.
• A series of hashtags on Twitter provide updates from news organizations and others on the ground in Japan (#fukushima, #radiation, #Japan)