Public Health Conference Call – First Call
August 10, 2017

Participants: Kevin Sayers, Kesha Braunskill, Marian Honeczy, Jennifer Teegarden, SheaZwerver, Phillip Rodbell, Chris Donnelly

  • Chris began the call with a round-robin of hellos and then a review of the subcommittee’s assignment, as outlined in the NAASF UCF Committee Workplan.
  • Chris then posed a couple of questions to the group, in order to kickstart the conversation. The question(s) to answer were: “Why do you think this topic (Trees and Public Heath) is important?” and/or “What recommendations do you have regarding what the subcommittee should be doing?”
  • SheaZwerver led off with a mention of an Environmental Justice workshop she had recently attended, that was also attended by Kesha and Marian. One observation she took from that meeting was how Environmental Justice and Public Health are closely related.
    Shea then noted that there is an increase in the amount of research regarding trees and public health, and also in the metrics associated with how trees affect public health. As a result, this a topic that is being talked about more and more. Shea sees this as presenting numerous opportunities, particularly with respect to cross pollination across disciplines (such as urban foresters and public health professionals).
  • Jennifer Teegarden noted that Minnesota has focused on the public health benefits of trees in both 2016 and 2017, including choosing this as a focus topic for Arbor Month 2017 (May – see links and
    Jennifer then talked in more detail about her experiences with the “Daily Dose of Trees” poster and video. She described her experiences reaching out to the medical community, including byproviding posters and links to the video to medical clinics, physician groups and even the Mayo Clinic.
    This effort was not always smooth-going. For instance, at the Mayo Clinic, she found it difficult to reach the medical professionals. The staff at the Clinic kept trying to divert her to the landscaping group, largely missing the point of her contact.
    More recently, Jennifer has been working with a social marketing company, partly to avoid some of these pitfalls.
  • Kevin Sayers stated that he is in support of work on this topic as it continues the movement of urban forestry out of the realm of simple amenity values and is part of the natural progression for urban forestry. With regards to the work of the subcommittee, he commented that it is work that we need to do. We as coordinators need to get more involved. He also mentioned funding as an important piece.
  • Marian Honeczy indicated that she agreed with Kevin, stating that there is already an existing connection between urban forestry and public health. She mentioned specific projects of the type that could help with making this connection, such as tree projects at veteran homes and retreat centers. She also referenced Minnesota’s web page on the public health benefits of trees (
  • Phillip Rodbell encouraged the group to continue in what he termed ‘a good conversation’. He also mentioned that he saw this as part of a discussion that is leading urban forestry from the limits of its traditional affiliation with public works and with parks and recreation.
    Phillip additionally mentioned that there is huge body of literature and long history of research regarding trees and public health. Urban foresters can take on the role of helping to bring people together through the mechanism of interest in public health.
  • Chris Donnelly then added his comments. He first discussed what he considers the three ‘subject areas’ the subcommittee needs to delve into – sources of information, audiences for that information, and good examples. He then talked about public health as a big block that we will need to consider in smaller parts – such as “urban forests and mental health” or “urban forests and exercise”.
  • Everyone having had a chance to offer some opening remarks, the conversation then turned to the business of the committee – and the specific topic of how to accomplish its goals. The first suggestion was that the subcommittee plan on five meetings before the May meeting in Portland. This was readily agreed to.
  • The second item for discussion was what should the product of the committee be – should it be, for instance, an annotated web page such as the green stormwater infrastructure subcommittee produced?
  • Shea stated initially, with several endorsers, that we should avoid being overly duplicative of websites that already exist, such as that created by Kathy Wolf (see
  • The group offered several suggestions for what the page should include:
  • Materials that could be used for urban forestry professionals
  • Tools for other urban forestry coordinators
  • Lessons learned, based on real world examples
  • How to get health professionals involved in urban forestry
  • A focus on quality spaces (see naturephl.org as an example)
  • This was a good discussion only partially captured. However, at this point, it was time to turn to planning the next conference call. The following were agreed to for the next call:
  • Chris would conduct a doodle poll to figure out the next date and time for scheduling the conference call.
  • Everyone would give some thought to the ‘categories’ within the topic of public health and trees. (‘urban forestry and mental health’ is an example of what one topic might be)
  • Everyone should continue to explore research articles, reports, examples of successes and other items of possible interest. Placing those findings into categories such as mentioned above would be helpful. Conversely, the findings could be aggregated and used as the basis for developing categories.
  • Chris will look into “Base Camp” and other types of note-sharing software, to see whether any of them might facilitate our work.
  • Jennifer, based on her work in Minnesota, will prepare a short report for presentation during our next conference call, on the general subject of the difficulties she encountered in her outreach efforts, including those associated with bridging gaps among professional groups, such as between urban foresters and medical professionals.
  • Phillip, working with Chris, will look to schedule Michelle Kondo, a research social scientist with the Forest Service ( for our next call. The thinking is that she can tell us more about her research while also assisting us in seeing the best ways to move forward in our assignment.
  • In a final discussion, there was solid consensus that being conveners is one of the more important roles of urban forestry coordinators. We have a key capability to bring various parties together, often around a specific subject or issue. That is an expertise that is very useful and should be kept in mind as we proceed with our work.

Notes compiled by Chris Donnelly
August 14, 2017