Some 200 public health professionals from throughout Northern California will gather at UC Davis this week to examine the health impacts of land-use planning and environmental problems on human health during the two-day annual meeting of the California Public Health Association-North.

The meeting will be held Thursday in the Memorial Union and Friday in Freeborn Hall.

Thursday's program will focus on how the natural environment and the "built" environment impact health. Morning sessions will offer conference participants a grounding in land-use planning, and afternoon sessions will examine how economic development affects public health.

The day's activities will end with a free, public preview screening and panel discussion of a new television documentary that explores socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health. This event will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Medical Science Building 1C, Lecture Hall 180, on the western side of the Davis campus.

The panelists will include renowned public health experts Leonard Syme, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley; Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at UC Davis; and Calvin Freeman, former director of the Office of Multicultural Health in the California Department of Health Services.

Also Thursday, Marc Schenker, a professor of public health sciences at UC Davis, will be presented the California Public Health Association-North's 2008 Public Health Leadership Award. The honor recognizes Schenker's efforts to raise public awareness of critical issues in public health, with a special focus on environmental and occupational health in the agricultural sector.

The conference's Friday program will focus on climate-change issues as they relate to public health. Guest speaker for the first plenary session will be Michael McGeehin of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discussing the major public-health effects of climate change, as well as adaptation and preparedness activities under way at CDC.

Discussing environmental justice and global climate change during the second plenary session will be Julie Sze, assistant professor of American studies and director of the Environmental Justice Project in UC Davis' John Muir Institute of the Environment, and Bets Reifsnider, environmental justice coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Stockton and a member of the California Interfaith Power and Light Project.

Also speaking Friday will be Linda Degutis, president of the American Public Health Association. Degutis is an associate professor of surgery and public health, and an associate clinical professor of nursing at Yale University.

The conference will end with sessions on water quality, food sustainability and health reform. The panel on health reform, moderated by John Troidl of UC Davis' Department of Public Health Sciences, will include representatives from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office, the Legislature, county government, and an advocacy group.

Both days, students in the UC Davis Master of Public Health Program will present posters showcasing their collaborative projects with state and local health departments and public health agencies.

This two-day conference is open to the public. Registration fee is $275 for members of the California Public Health Association-North, $330 for nonmembers and special price of $20 for students.

Media representatives interested in attending should contact Troidl at (530) 754-9036 or jjtroidl@ucdavis.edu.

More conference information and registration are available online at: http://www.cphan.org/annual.html#reg.