MNORN Newsletter October 2017

The Topic for the September MNORN Member Meeting was ‘Gun Violence: A Public Health Issue’

MNORN was fortunate to have Rev. Nancy Nord Bence, executive director of Protect Minnesota, as our speaker at our meeting on September 19th. Nancy is ordained Lutheran paster, fostered by the Saint Paul Area Synod of the ELCA. In the course of her 18-year ministry in suburban congregations, she officiated at six funerals for gun violence victims. After the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015, she felt called to leave parish ministry and join the gun reform movement.

Protect Minnesota is the only independent, state-based gun violence prevention organization in Minnesota. Within the structure of Protect Minnesota are several caucuses, which are their internal constituency groups. One of these caucuses is the Health Care Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, made up of Public Health professionals and health care providers working together to Protect Minnesota from gun violence.

Protect Minnesota promotes a culture of health and safety for all Minnesotans by preventing gun violence through effective legislation,

policies, and community education programs. https://protectmn.org/our-history/

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MNORN Newsletter October 2017

The theme of the MNORN program was ‘Gun Violence and Public Health… Leading the Conversation’

Nancy began the discussion by reminding us about the difference between the Traditional Model about gun violence, focusing on individual rights, behavior, and punishment & the Public Health Model, which focuses on population trends and the safety of the community. She commented that gun violence acts a lot like an infected vector.

One of Protect Minnesota’s goals is to train volunteers to engage in honest discussions about gun violence, using an Activist’s Toolkit which consists of:

1. Personal experience: telling your story (for MNORN attendees - 2 stories of gun violence (dramatic - not suicide)

2. Passion: let them see how you feel - facts are important but not compelling - we need to match the passion of the gun lobby

3. Facts: data makes the difference if wrapped into personal experience 4. Reason for the fact Then, using these four elements, create a 1-minute message about the need to reduce gun violence.

Some Gun Facts from the Protect Minnesota Website (a more complete list of facts can be found at Protect Minnesota Gun Facts with Citations)

- 117,000 Americans are shot every year: one every five minutes. Over 33,500 Americans die from being shot every year: one every 17 minutes. Between 2001 - 2013, guns killed more people in the US than AIDS, illegal drug overdoses, wars and terrorism combined. In 2015, more Americans died in the gun violence epidemic than in the opioid epidemic.

- 67% of gun owners now cite personal protection as the primary reason they buy a gun, although a gun in your home is 22 times more likely to kill or injure a family member than to ever be used in self-defense. 38% of gun owners say there is a gun that is both loaded and easily accessible to them all of the time when they are at home.

- Nearly 1,300 children and you die from guns annually in American, making gun violence the third leading cause of death for all children under age 18, and the leading cause of death for young African American males. Two to three times as many toddlers die by gun fire every year than police officers; toddlers kill twice as many Americans every year than terrorists do.

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MNORN Newsletter October 2017

- Women living in homes with guns are FIVE times more likely to be killed by their domestic partner. Comprehensive criminal background checks cut domestic murders in half. 84% of Minnesotans support comprehensive criminal background checks - including 77% of Republican voters — yet we can’t even get a hearing on the CBC bill that has been introduced in the Minnesota legislature.

- Between 75-85% of all gun deaths in Minnesota are suicides, which occur disproportionately in rural areas and are overwhelmingly white. Between 1999 - 2014, gun suicides increased 35% in Minnesota. ANYONE living in a home with a gun is three times more likely to commit suicide than those living in homes without guns.

Advocacy for Reducing Gun Violence at the State Level

Protect Minnesota supports a bill that would allow for Gun Violence Protective Orders, which is opposed by NRA and NAMI.This bill would allow for gun violence restraining orders and extreme risk protection orders, so that families and household members, as well as law enforcement officers, could petition a court to remove a person’s access to guns if he or she poses an imminent danger to self or others.

Two of the bills that Protect Minnesota opposes come to the State Capital year after year - the “Stand Your Ground” bill and a “Constitutional Carry” bill. Neither of these bills made it to a hearing during the 2017 Legislative Session, but there will probably be more attempts made in 2018.

The “Stand Your Ground” bill makes the standard ‘were you afraid?’ when you shot someone with a gun. From a healthcare perspective, this standard would create an increased risk particularly for homecare nurses and social workers, as well as others.

The “Constitutional Carry” bill, otherwise known as permit-less carry, would allow guns in public places including hospitals, schools, churches, etc.

Another bill to watch for is one that wold allow a lifetime permit to carry.

Protect Minnesota’s number one goal is passage of a bill for comprehensive background checks.

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MNORN Newsletter October 2017

Personal Advocacy We ended the meeting creating our own 1-minute speeches about gun violence, after being reminded that using “I Statements” allows for a dialogue rather than a debate.

Here is the framework we used for creating our own messages: Person Experience: As (someone who)___________________________________________

Feeling: I am very ____________________________________________________

Fact about gun violence: about________________________________________________________

Why: because_____________________________________________________

The messages attendees created were poignant and powerful, drawing on their personal experiences with gun violence and their experiences as nurses caring for those who were victims of gun violence.

A couple of news articles since our MNORN Meeting:

Geography of Mass Shootings

Hospital emergency rooms saw more than 700,000 shooting victims last decade:

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Personal Experience +Feeling +Fact+ Reason =______________________Your 1-minute message

MNORN Newsletter October 2017

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MNORN Members Involved in ANA Activities:

Mary Tanner, Molly Maxwell & Travis Moore have just begun their year-long American Nurses Advocacy Institute Fellowship. Here they are with their colleagues from other state nurses associations in Washington DC:

Sara McCumber has just been re-appointed to the ANA Committee on Bylaws.

Molly Maxwell has been appointed to the ANA Committee on Honorary Awards Subcommittee.

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Our Next MNORN MEMBER MEETING/ANNUAL MEETING December 5th, at the Carondelet Center in St Paul

Time: 6 - 9PM Topic: Learning About Single Payer (panel to include Rep. Erin

Murphy RN) Hope you will be able to Join Us!

MNORN Newsletter October 2017

CLIMATE CORNERRachel Kerr, BS, RN, OCN, DNP student,

University of Minnesota

Air quality affects all of us, and climate change negatively affects air quality in the following ways.

• Wildfires: extreme events like wildfires are becoming more frequent and more severe due to climate change. Wildfires result in decreased air quality in their immediate vicinity and often up to thousands of miles away. We’ve seen this recently with decreased air quality in Minnesota resulting from wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and Montana.

• Air Pollution: warmer air in a warmer climate holds more particulate and ozone pollution. This means that air quality is already worse as a result of climate change, without taking into account extreme events.

• Pollen: climate change increases pollen production by allergenic plants and extends the allergy season, sometimes drastically.

• Mold: mold growth and mold content in the air is enhanced in the warmer and more humid climate that now exists in Minnesota.

• Vulnerable groups: children, older adults, people living in areas close to point-source pollution (such as coal plants and highways), and people with pre-existing health conditions, especially cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, are more vulnerable to health impacts from decreased air quality. However, decreased air quality can have serious health consequences for healthy people as well.

What can nurses do about these air quality issues? • Stay updated on the air quality in your area via the following website:

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/current-air-quality • Educate patients at risk to do the same, and ensure they understand what

to do (i.e., avoid outdoor air exposure and particularly outdoor exertion) when air quality is poor.

• Detailed information regarding activity and outdoor exposure restrictions for specific groups can be found here: https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqi_brochure.index

• Limit your own contribution to air pollution. o Turn off your vehicle when idling. “Warming up” your engine is

unnecessary, and doing it for more than 30 seconds is actually harmful for both air quality/health and your car.

o Bike, walk, or use public transit whenever possible. o Call your energy provider and ask to source your electricity from

clean power sources (i.e., wind and/or solar)—this is a surprisingly inexpensive and effective option.

• Advocate for addressing climate change as a health issue in your health organization, in public policy, in your faith community, and in other groups you are part of.

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MNORN Newsletter October 2017

The American Nurses Association (ANA) Department of Health Policy seeks applicants for the Connected Health/Telehealth

Professional Issues Panel to be convened in January 2018.

This panel will convene for approximately 6-8 months in order to review and update ANA's twelve Core Principles on Telehealth. Registered nurses in current practice with experience and/or training in connected health, telehealth, and tele-nursing are invited to apply. Applicants must be ANA or organizational affiliate members.

Background ANA will use "Connected Health" as the global term to reflect the broad lens necessary to update the Core Principles on Telehealth. "Connected Health" has been described as "the umbrella term arrived at to lessen the confusion over definitions of telemedicine, telehealth, and mHealth" (Iglehart, 20 J.K., 2014).

The Steering Committee comprised of approximately 15 individuals will complete the review and update process via monthly two-hour virtual meetings. The review and update of the twelve Core Principles on Telehealth from the Steering Committee will require an additional approximate 10 hours per month in small group sessions again, via virtual meetings. The appointed Chair(s) of the Steering Committee should anticipate an additional 2-4 hours per month time commitments.

All applicants not selected for the Steering Committee will be invited to participate in the associated Advisory Committee's virtual dialogue through a dedicated online community, ANACommunity. The Advisory Committee requires approximately two hours per month to participate in online dialogue, including the opportunity to provide feedback, contribute resources such as exemplars, and assist in identifying applicable research in the literature.

The deadline for applications is November 5, 2017. Notifications of selection for the Connected Health/Telehealth Professional Issues Panel will be sent by mid-December 2017. Questions can be sent to professionalissuespanels@ana.org.

For more information: Connected Health/Tele-health

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MNORN Newsletter October 2017

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When we think of the ANF, we think about:

And, perhaps about:

Here are even more things that ANF has been doing:

Now a new Disaster Relief fund for the nurses have been impacted by recent hurricanes

The MNORN Board has sent $500 to this Disaster Relief Fund and hope you will

consider making an individual contribution also.

Learn more at http://www.anfonline.org

MNORN Newsletter October 2017

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Pulitzer Prize-winning Author

A conversation with

Matthew Desmond

Executive VP and Provost Karen Hanson will talk with Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, about his ethnographic work and his insights on housing, health and well-being. Desmond is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University.

Date: Friday, October 20, 2017

Time: 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. Location: Northrop, 84 Church Street SE, Minneapolis Cost: Free, reserve tickets at:

http://www.northrop.umn.edu/events/speakers

University of Minnesota Co-sponsors: • Academic Health Center • Carlson School of Management • College of Liberal Arts • Earl E. Bakken Center for

Spirituality and Healing • GPS Alliance • Humphrey School of Public Affairs

• Law School • Office of Equity & Diversity • Office of the Executive

Vice President and Provost • School of Dentistry • University Libraries

From MNORN member Teddie Potter:Nurses understand that social determinants have a huge impact on health. Therefore I am pleased that the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota is illuminating the eviction "epidemic" in America. Please join us for this free public lecture. Tickets can be obtained from Northrop by following this link.

See the attached flier for more details.

Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, will be at Northrop on Oct. 20. The conversation will be facilitated by Provost Karen

Hanson. 

MNORN Newsletter October 2017

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Empowering leadership for a climate change movementBrown bag lunch seminar

Oct. 27, 2017   12-1:30pm   Augsburg College Oren Center -- room TBD

Join us for a discussion of challenges, opportunities, and experiences in grassroots leadership empowerment for building a climate change movement.  Discussion leaders will share observations and reflections on theory and practice from their

extensive climate change organizing efforts and classroom methods for empowering students as future standard bearers. Conversation will draw from the curriculum of a 2018 UMN Grand Challenges course entitled “The Global Climate

Movement: Building an Empowered Movement for Change,”  

Speakers: Julia Nerbonne -- Director, MN Interfaith Power and Light, and UMN adjunct professor

Teddie Potter -- UMN School of Nursing Jessica Gutknecht -- UMN Department of Soil, Water, and Climate

Tapping the Fierce Spirit of Women: Join us at the 2017 Women’s Congress for Future Generations as we explore the intersection of Climate, Health & Justice. We will hear from nationally recognized experts on climate change and

from women working in communities impacted by groundwater contamination, pipelines, and toxins in our homes. We will reimagine how together we can disrupt the systems that are supporting racial, social and environmental

injustice, creating a just transition to a healthy future and writing a new story where everyone is valued and Mother Earth is held sacred.