Manijeh Berenji, MD MPH

My name is Mani Berenji I am a double board-certified Occupational & Environmental Medicine and Preventive Medicine physician currently pursuing additional training in Clinical Informatics as well as Healthcare Administration Leadership & Management! I am an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UC Irvine in the Division of Environmental & Occupational Health. I am also the Lead for for Academic and Community Partnerships at the UC Center for Climate Health & Equity. I am Chief of Occupational and Environmental Health at VA Long Beach Healthcare System, taking care of VA employees as well as veterans with their environmental exposures. Over the course of my career, I have witnessed the impacts of climate change on my patients including immigrant farmworkers in the Salinas Valley in California, outdoor laborers in the metropolitan Boston area, and veterans in the metropolitan Los Angeles area. Treating my patients for acute exacerbations of asthma, worsening cardiovascular disease, and underlying environmental allergies has not only informed my clinical practice but also has been my call to action to do more for my patients. I am pursuing Clinical Informatics board certification so I can advance the burgeoning field of environmental health informatics and this working group is on the cutting edge of spearheading this specialization. By bringing together clinicians like myself and informaticians, we can start to systematically focus on the impacts of climate change on health. We are detailing how rising temperatures, worsening air quality, extreme weather events, and changing disease patterns affect patients. We are developing the frameworks for healthcare organizations to become more sustainable and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions so can better protect the patients they take care of. This working group is addressing climate-related health risks in community and occupational settings by creating predictive risk models so can inform stakeholders and formulate data-informed climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. I am honored to be part of this working group and we hope you will join us in our efforts!