Advocacy Tools
Become an Activist
This page is continually updated, so please check back for more soon!
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” Dolores Huerta
Want to become an activist but not sure where to start? Interested in learning key points to speak on an issue more persuasively? Here you will find resources to help you amplify your health professional voice, understand the data, contact your government representatives, write op-eds, and more . . .
Don’t see what you’re looking for? Try our Readings & Resources or Volunteer/Engage pages.
HOW TO START
Think about your current work and activities, writing, teaching, speaking, etc. and then think about how you can build activism into what you already do. For example, you could write op-eds, or add environmental health curriculum to your lectures, or give a talk to your department, at a conference, or for a health professional society. The article below gives some excellent tips about how to start advocating to save the planet.
CLIMATE CRISIS
- Guardian article on more scientifically accurate terminology to use when discussing the climate crisis
- Mini Medical School for the Public: The Health Emergency of Climate Change: WATCH Recorded Sessions: Co-chaired by SF Bay PSR members Katherine Gundling, MD, and Robin Cooper, MD, and including lectures by SF Bay PSR members. Produced by UCSF, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION
- #stillhere movement
- #stillhere: Learn more about the hibukusha, the survivors of the nuclear attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and other survivors including veterans, mine workers, and people living near test sites
- ICAN: Reports on Nuclear Weapons Abolition
- ICAN: 2-minute movie on the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
- Back from the Brink
- American Public Health Association (APHA): The Role of Public Health Practitioners, Academics, and Advocates in Relation to Armed Conflict and War
- Arms Control Association: U.S. Nuclear Modernization Fact Sheet
- United Nations: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- United Nations: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
- Hibakusha Stories: Setsuko Thurlow, survivor of nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Gives Final Remarks at Ban Treaty Adoption
- Union of Concerned Scientists: I Wish I didn’t know that: Real-life close calls, screw ups, and nuclear near misses.
- Vermont International Film Festival: War and Nuclear Weapons Series
- Exchange Monitor: House NDAA Amendments Set Stage for Nuclear Weapons Debates With Senate
- Guardian: World nuclear arms spending hit $73bn last year – half of it by US
- The Washington Post: Trump administration discussed conducting first U.S. nuclear test in decades
- The Nation: We Must Resist the ‘China Threat Syndrome’
JUSTICE: RACIAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL
- Environmental Health Perspectives: Environmental Racism Collection: Exposure and Health Inequities in Black Americans
- NEJM: Beyond a Moment — Reckoning with Our History and Embracing Antiracism in Medicine
- Othering & Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley: The Sick Side of Town: How Place Shapes Disparities in Health, A Policy Brief
- Guardian: Environmental Justice Means Racial Justice
- New York Times: Black Environmentalists Talk About Climate and Anti-Racism
- National Black Environmental Justice Network
- Racial Equity Tools
- Dr. Robin DiAngelo Discusses White Fragility
- White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
- Sojourners: For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies
- Guardian: Black Americans dying of Covid-19 at three times the rate of white people
- SF Gate: SF’s COVID-19 case data by ZIP code reveals hardest-hit neighborhoods
- The New Yorker: Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests
- Obama.org: Community policing Tool Kit
- New York Times: An Antiracist Reading List, Ibram X. Kendi on books to help America transcend its racist heritage
- Time: Several Antiracist Books Are Selling Out. Here’s What Else Black Booksellers and Publishers Say You Should Read
- Equal Justice Initiative
- NAACP Legal Defense Fund
- Black Lives Matter
- TED Talk: Alicia Garcia, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter
- Color of Change