*All ages and abilities are welcome to participate.

With world TB day approaching, Breathe Califonia Golden Gate Health Partnership focuses the March 2013 podcast on the current TB climate in California.  Joining us today is Julie Higashi M.D., Ph.D, President of the California Tuberculosis Controllers Association and TB Controller. 

The Alliance for Climate Education’s mission is to educate high school students on the science behind climate change and inspire them to take action to curb global warming.

Global warming, which is well recognized by scientists around the world as an urgent public health issue - directly impacts air quality and is damaging to lung health.

Ms. Cox leads the Center’s research on toxic exposures, identifying, analyzing and substantiating the scientific bases to eliminate threats to children and others exposed to dangerous chemicals in consumer products. She writes and speaks regularly as a national expert on toxicity as well as alternatives to pesticide use.

In this podcast Stephanie Williams, a Community Health Worker with the Pediatric Asthma and Allergy Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, talks about tips regarding what your child’s school should know about their condition, what to put in your child’s backpack in case of an attack and how they can avoid triggers which may exacerbate their condition. She also speaks about the importance of exercise and the common misconceptions about asthma. Ms. Williams is responsible for clinic prep, triaging patients, case management, homevisits and patient education for pediatrics at San Francisco General Hospital.

In this podcast, we speak with the executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition, Leah Shahum. The SFBC has over 12,000 members and has been instrumental, through it’s various programs and advocacy programs, in helping to bring about this change.

To learn more about biking with Breathe California at our annual Bike 4 Breath ride on July 14th, please visit www.bike4breath.org.

Dr. Klepeis, a 2012 Breathe California Clean Air Award recipient in the Public Health category,  is a Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. His research on the transfer of secondhand smoke has been influential on emerging policy proposals for smoke-free multi-unit housing throughout California.

In this podcast we speak with Dr. Stan Glantz about why the passage of Proposition 29 will  significantly reduce smoking rates in California while raising money for cancer research and other programs. He also speaks about some of the tactics that big tobacco companies are using to win support from local organizations to fight the proposition.

Dr. Glantz is a professor of Medicine and Director for the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco.

For the past four years Breathe California has supplied volunteers at all water stops for the Bay to Breakers race and has been a beneficiary in the race’s “Pledge Runner” program.

In the 1980s, Mr. DeNoble was a research scientist at a major tobacco company where he was tasked with finding a safer form of nicotine that would not cause heart attacks. He succeeded but in the process produced something that the industry had been denying and avoiding for years, scientific evidence that nicotine was addictive. Instead of remaining silent, DeNoble became an important whistleblower—testifying before congress and setting off a chain of events that has had a profound effect on   laws regulating tobacco use.

As a lung health organization that spends a considerable amount of time on tobacco control and smoking cessation classes, we became very interested  in this film and are happy to have Mr. Evans and Mr. DeNoble with us on the Breathe California Educational Podcast Series.

At 36, Bhavani began to practice yoga and eventually became a certified Integral Yoga Instructor. Upon discovering yoga, she also discovered and developed yogic practices to minimize her asthma episodes. She has taught workshops to hundreds of students throughout the bay area in an effort to help them understand how breathing techniques and gentle, simple postures can relieve some of their chronic asthma symptoms.

Today we are going to look at mold in the home and its potential effects on respiratory health. Respiratory problems such as asthma often begin in the home due to things that cannot be seen and are not easily detected. One of these things is mold, which grows in damp places in the home and other buildings. A 2009 report from the World Health Organization determined that there is a consistent association between indoor dampness and mold in buildings and many types of respiratory or allergic health suffered by the building’s occupants.

In this podcast we speak with Mark Mendell Ph.D. about this issue.  Mark Mendell is currently an Air Pollution Research Specialist in the Indoor Air Quality Section of the California Department of Public Health and a Staff Scientist/Epidemiologist in the Indoor Environment Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

With this in mind, today we are going to talk about electric vehicle charging stations.

For years the idea of the automobile running on nothing but electricity has been seemingly part science fiction and part wishful thinking. But with the introduction of the Nissan Leaf earlier this year and the beginnings of a dedicated effort to begin work on an electric charging station infrastructure by organizations such as the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the hope now seems to be turning into reality. The Air District has recently invested $3.9 million for the deployment of an electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

In this podcast we speak with the Air District’s Director of Strategic Incentives, Damian Breen about many issues surrounding electric cars including how the charging infrastructure will be implemented and what the potential impact a transition to electric vehicles on a mass level may have on air quality.

In the following podcast, Dr, Masae Kawamura a tuberculosis (TB) clinician for more than 20 years and Director of San Francisco’s TB Control Program since 1996, speaks about the tobacco/TB link. She also talks about treatment options for smokers and non-smokers and the overall picture of TB worldwide and in the Bay Area.

In this podcast we speak with Luz Agana of the Asthma Task Force about the dangers of many widely-used cleaning products in childcare facilities. Luz speaks about alternatives to commonly used products, how the task force is educating workers about the toxic dangers of everyday cleaning products and what a parent should be looking for when visiting a childcare facility.

Breathe California has supported the San Francisco Task Force for nearly a decade and secured funding for this project.

As the winter months approach, we want to examine the current regulations in respect woodburning. Woodburning is something many of us do on a cold winter day, however many are unaware of the health and environmental toll that particulate matter from wood can cause.

Kristine clarifies information regarding “Spare the Air” days, enforcement of current regulations and the detrimental health impact that woodsmoke can cause for bay area residents.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB32, vigorously supported by Breathe California and a number of other public health organizations, passed in 2006 to reduce greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

For the past year and a half Breathe California GGPHP has worked with the WRA to include smoking cessation into their recovery program. In this podcast, you’ll hear about the challenges and successes of implementing a smoking cessation program into an already existing substance abuse program.

In this podcaast, producer Marc Smolowitz discusses the politics of organ transplantation, the Stenzel sisters’ lives and how events such as Breathe California’s Bike 4 Breath raise awareness for a variety of lung-related issues.