NEW! Mission, Focus, and Vision

SF Bay PSR Board of Directors voted unanimously to adopt "Safeguarding & Strengthening Democracy" as the third pillar of our work—joining our long-standing commitments to Abolishing Nuclear Weapons and Protecting the Climate, Environment, and Health. READ MORE.

MISSION

San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility unites the power of medicine and activism to protect life, confront the greatest threats to human and planetary health, and empower communities to build a safer, more just, and sustainable world.

FOCUS

We advance policies and actions that protect human and planetary health from the threats of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the entire nuclear cycle, militarism, environmental degradation, climate change, and social injustice—while safeguarding and strengthening the democratic rights crucial to achieve these protections.

VISION

A healthy, just, and peaceful world where people and the planet thrive free from the threats of war, pollution, and injustice.

History

Founded in 1979

San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility (SF Bay PSR), founded in 1979, is a nonprofit education and advocacy organization. SF Bay PSR was the first PSR chapter to be organized in the U.S. and it remains one of the largest of the 24 U.S. PSR chapters. Please explore Our Work for more information about our programs and to learn how to become actively engaged in our chapter activities. We invite you to become part of the change needed to survive and thrive as a species in harmony with our planet.

Confronting Existential Threats

Since Physicians for Social Responsibility National (PSR) was founded in 1961, the organization has worked to prevent what cannot be cured. We began by confronting the existential threat of nuclear war, recognizing that there is no medical response to nuclear devastation.

Three decades later, PSR expanded its mission to include environmental and climate protection, understanding that a rapidly warming planet and our continued reliance on fossil fuels pose equally grave and intertwined dangers to human survival.

Throughout this evolution, SF Bay PSR has always viewed our work through a social, racial, and environmental justice lens—knowing that low-income communities and communities of color are consistently the most harmed by pollution, militarism, and social injustice.

SF Bay PSR's newest pillar "safeguarding and strengthening the democratic rights," makes transparent that, as with peace and a healthy environment, democracy is a public health imperative. Without functioning democratic institutions—those that value truth, protect rights, and allow equitable participation—our ability to address nuclear threats, our climate crisis, and social and environmental injustice is deeply compromised.