Children face disproportionate risks from environmental health exposures, yet caregivers and providers often lack accessible, actionable guidance for prevention and response. This presentation examines the environmental health literacy gap in community and clinical settings and presents a national model for closing it. Drawing on the development of 23 health-literate “Prescriptions for Prevention” resources through the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU) network, the session traces the pathway from community-facing education to clinical integration. The regional building blocks have informed the national effort to embed these resources into electronic medical record systems to support provider assessment, coding, ordering, and patient education delivery at point of care. Attendees will examine evidence on health literacy’s role in prevention efficacy, explore the practical and technical challenges of EMR interventions, and consider how this scalable model could be adapted across health systems, specialties, and federal programs to improve both provider workflow and patient uptake.
Learning objectives:
- Describe the environmental health literacy gap affecting caregivers and providers, and its impact on pediatric environmental exposure prevention and health outcomes.
- Evaluate the evidence for health-literate patient education as an effective mechanism for environmental health prevention in community and clinical settings.
- Analyze the process and challenges of translating health education resources into clinical decision support tools.
- Apply lessons from this national model to identify opportunities for scaling environmental health literacy interventions at other institutions, in research agendas, or within federal programs.
About the Presenter
Dr. Abby Mutic, PhD, MSN, CNM, directs the Region 4 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU), where she leads community-based interventions, rapid responses to environmental exposures, and training for the next generation of children’s environmental health investigators. She brings over two decades of nursing experience to this work and continues to practice clinically as a Certified Nurse Midwife.
Dr. Mutic is Assistant Professor at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University, where her research program assesses environmental air pollutants that influence the health and wellbeing of children in care and early learning settings. Her scholarship also evaluates health communication strategies to understand what drives learning and lasting behavior change. Dr. Mutic is committed to advancing environmental health literacy within communities, and she partners with local organizations to translate her findings into actionable steps that mitigate exposures and improve public health.