San Diego Healthy Homes Symposium, 2009   Legislative Summit May 28, 2009 | San Diego, CA

Presenter Bios   Rebecca Morley, Executive Director, National Center for Healthy Housing Rebecca Morley leads NCHH’s multi-disciplinary staff in creating healthy and safe housing for children through practical and proven steps. She led the development of the National Healthy Homes Training Center and spearheaded NCHH’s work in the Gulf Coast following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She has authored numerous articles and publications on the topic of housing-related health hazards. She also worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she developed lead paint regulations and managed an array of children’s environmental health projects. She served on the President’s Task Force for Children’s Environmental Health and Safety and contributed to HUD’s preliminary Healthy Homes Initiative plan and Strategic Plan to Eliminate Childhood Lead Poisoning by 2010. Ms. Morley also served as a legislative fellow to U.S. Senator Jack Reed; where she authored key components of the Kennedy Health Bill related to childhood lead poisoning and helped to establish a national childhood lead poisoning prevention week through a Senate resolution. She serves on the Board of the National Disease Clusters Alliance and on the Howard County Environmental and Sustainability Commission.   Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez, PhD, Research Director, Cal State San Marcos Dr. Nuñez-Alvarez oversees university and community applied research and education partnerships. She is the primary investigator on local and national evaluation and research projects that explore topics in the areas of environmental health and environmental justice, disparities, cultural and linguistic competency, civic engagement and disaster preparedness of vulnerable populations. She has extensive expertise on environmental health and justice issues in San Diego. She currently oversees research and evaluation projects including Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA), a state-wide strategic initiative funded by The California Endowment to create and implement policies and community advocacy efforts to reduce environmental risk factors for school aged children with asthma in the home, school, and outdoor air environments; Casas Saludables, a three-year evaluation of the Mid City CAN Proyecto Casas Saludables assessing indoor air quality in homes and engaging community residents in a community-based approach to identify solutions to improve housing conditions; and Health, Housing and the Law; and an ongoing research project exploring how research, interventions, and evaluations are assembled to inform issues on indoor environmental health hazards in substandard housing.   Doug Farquhar, Program Director, National Conference of State Legislatures Doug Farquhar is an attorney with over 20 years experience working with policy makers on environmental health issues. Primarily working with state legislatures, he has testified 45 times before legislative committees in 30 states, in addition to consulting with state agency staff in every state on enlightening state policy makers. He has written books and articles on environmental health policy, and has recently been asked to become a columnist for the National Environmental Health Journal. For the past 17 years, Mr. Farquhar has directed the Environmental Health Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures. This program performs legislative analysis and outreach on state and federal environmental, health and trade laws; focusing on the delegation and authorization of federal and state laws; and provides legal and technical assistance to state legislators and agency staff on state, federal and international environmental, environmental health, and trade policies. He also provides testimony before state legislative committees and task forces; reviews and comments on legislation and regulations, drafts memos, articles and books on state environmental health policies; and represents state interests before federal and international bodies.

Homes should be safe havens for families. Sadly, it is the place where children are most likely to be injured or become ill. Every year in the US there are: Over 13 million home injuries Nearly 3,000 deaths due to house fires Two million emergency room visits for asthma An estimated 250,000 children with elevated blood lead levels With both our housing and health care sectors in crisis, there is a critical need to tackle the preventable disease and injury caused by unhealthy housing and neighborhood conditions. The Community Forum brings together community members, professionals and advocates in the fields of housing, health, policy, code enforcement, legal assistance, property management, community development and green building. Attendees will learn about the link between health and housing, especially as it relates to asthma and to reducing health disparities. The program will feature both recent data and promising approaches for application in the field. This Legislative Summit brings together professionals and advocates in the fields of housing, health, policy, code enforcement, legal assistance, property management, community development and green building. Attendees will learn about the link between health and housing, especially as relates to asthma and to reducing health disparities. The program will feature both recent data and promising approaches for application in the field. We hope you can also participate at the Community Forum session from 5:00-7:30 this evening at the  Price Charities Building,  6th Floor, 4305 University Ave.,  San Diego, CA

Agenda (Click on the underlined speaker's names below to view additional information)     12:30 PM Light Refreshments and Networking     1:00 PM Welcome and Opening Remarks     1:15 PM Housing and Health Connection: National and State HH Policy Trends   Speaker: Rebecca Morley     2:00 PM Proyecto Casas Saludables: Healthy Homes Coalition Project Overview   Speaker: Genoveva Aguilar     2:15 PM HH Policy Recommendations for City/County Agencies   Speaker: Dr. Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez     2:35 PM Healthy Homes Best Policy Practices   Speaker: Doug Farquhar     3:10 PM Open discussion and Summary     3:30 PM Adjournment

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