Laws and regulations at every level of government affect the health of our communities and our environment. Women for a Healthy Environmental engages in healthy policy by coalition building with community partners, advocating for stronger protections from environmental exposures, and holding policymakers and corporations accountable. Through our work, we aim to shape policies that ensure everyone can enjoy a safe and healthy environment.
Health Policy
Program Overview
Coalition Building
Women for a Healthy Environment works with partners across the region to identify goals and advance policy in the environmental health space. Our partners come from non-profit organizations, government agencies, and the community. Together, we work to influence a broad range of policies from city level ordinances to nationwide regulations. Feel free to learn more about our partners and coalitions on our programming page.
Advocacy
Women for a Healthy Environment strives to influence policy made at the local, state, and federal levels to create the conditions for everyone to live in a healthy environment. We engage policymakers to pass legislation and write regulations that reflect our goals by educating legislators, writing comments and letters, and mobilizing our community to reach out to lawmakers. Our advocacy is driven by the needs of our community and principles of environmental justice. Learn more about our current policy initiatives.
Environmental Justice
The principles of environmental justice are at the core of our policy work. For too long, poor and marginalized communities have faced a disproportionate burden of environmental harm due to the intentional policy choices driven by racism and classism. The environmental justice movement, created by Black organizers, aims to address these inequities by ensuring the same degree of protection from environmental hazards for all communities and equitable access to participate in decision-making processes. Everyone deserves to live, work, and play in a safe and healthy environment, and the work of Women for a Healthy Environment is informed by this movement.
Accountability
In order to ensure that the policies and goals we support are enacted, Women for a Healthy Environment works to hold policymakers, government agencies, and corporations accountable. We hold these powers accountable by releasing reports to assess their progress and engaging with the media to apply the force of public pressure. Our goal is to increase transparency to keep our community informed.
Where We Work
Women for a Healthy Environment empowers individuals and builds coalitions to advocate for policy change on the local, state and federal policy levels. Our policy efforts strive to elevate the voices of those most impacted by environmental hazards, and extend not only across the state of Pennsylvania, but optimally, across the United States.
Interested in supporting this program?
For just $25, you can help provide us the tools to help us advocate for change on the local, state and federal policy levels.
