Por Natalia Ospina

When I think about getting outside, various things come to mind. I think about the general setting of where I will be recreating, and I usually think about the impact being outside will have on my mood. You see, I was once really sick. Not the kinda sick that you get over in a couple of days, drink some soup, watch a lot of Netflix. The kinda sick where you spend years wondering if you’ll ever be able to physically walk more than the block around your house. The kinda sick where you plan outings next to the nearest hospital. You see, a lot of my existence revolved around feeling safe. As I started to learn what treatments worked for me and started to get stronger,  I began to really think about the disconnect between wellbeing and the outdoors.

But why is the conservation /environmental world siloed from the public health world?

I started thinking about how BIPOC communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental justice and adverse health outcomes and wondered if these two worlds could work together. What if there was a world where health care providers could provide patients with a list of parks in their areas (in a way the patient can understand), where they could connect them to environmental groups that can provide patients with gear and information on how to try a particular sport?

We know the future is intersectional, so what if collaboration between these two can improve not only an individual’s health but also decrease hospitalization costs, address health disparities, and potentially become an investment source for conservation? As somebody who dabbles in the weird purgatory world that is being able-bodied most of the time with flares of being bedridden, how neat would it be to be able to have a list of green spaces that are accessible to me when I just want to read a book outside, and a list of trails that I can access when I have my weeks of being able to run miles on miles. What if I could provide all this information to my healthcare team, taking into account air quality, the impact climate change has had on the areas I’m recreating on. To me, it’s all connected. I hope that my mind dump on what I’m putting into action in my new role at an environmental organization outside of Chicago that helps you explore your connection to what it means for our communities to be well.