Every year, Health Care Without Harm and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments come together to honor a nurse who sees beyond the bedside – someone who understands that true healing requires clean air, safe water, and a stable climate. A nurse whose environmental activism and accomplishments have made a significant contribution to environmental health.
We are thrilled to announce Yasna Palmeiro-Silva, Ph.D., MPH,RN, as the 2026 Charlotte Brody Award recipient. A registered nurse from Chile, Palmeiro-Silva has transformed her experience in ICU bedside care into a powerful nurse-scientist voice at the intersection of climate change, population health, and global policy.
From critical care to climate advocacy
Palmeiro-Silva didn’t start out as a climate researcher. She began her career as an ICU nurse, primarily working with cardiovascular disease and surgery patients – but something kept nagging at her.
“During my shifts, I noticed every single time that we were having younger and younger patients,” she reflected. “This is not okay. This is not sustainable. Because of their quality of life, but also because as a society, we cannot afford to have ill people.”
The realization that the hospital could not solve problems rooted in how we live, build our societies, and work drove her to take action. She left the ICU to study public health, then earned her Ph.D. in global health from University College in London. Her thesis linked climate change and public health in Chile. Today, she lives in Seattle, Washington, but her work continues to span continents.
Changing laws in Chile
One story Palmeiro-Silva shared stands out as a testament to what one nurse-scientist can achieve.
In Chile, the intersection of climate change, heat, and health was barely discussed until just three years ago. Palmeiro-Silva saw an opportunity – she took her epidemiological skills and produced evidence-based analysis for the policymaking sphere. The result? New policy.
“Right now, we have three or four laws that have been passed,” she said. One law explicitly requires that specific requirements be met to protect people’s health from climate change, now being woven into national and regional climate action plans.
This isn’t just advocacy – it’s systemic change.
Inspiring nurses – all in a days work
When asked how she inspires other nurses to share her passion, Palmeiro-Silva was humble.
“For me, inspiring other people is not something that I consciously do,” she said. “I do it through dialogue and sharing of experiences.”
She notes that nursing education in Chile is heavily focused on clinical practice. By helping nurses understand how the problems they see during their shifts – younger patients, chronic diseases, respiratory distress – are linked to upstream factors like governance, policy, and the environment, she expands their perspective.
She’s spoken to nurses in Turkey, the United Kingdom, Latin America, and the United States, and she’s seeing the movement grow. “They see me as a thought leader who started in the ICU who is now pushing for policy change on a global level.”
Lessons from a global perspective
Having worked extensively outside the United States, Palmeiro-Silva offered a powerful lesson for any health professional doing climate work here.
“What happens in one country could be totally different from another,” she cautioned. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn. She advocates for “learning from comparison; not competition.”
Her advice? Keep the big picture in mind. Climate change and health is a large, complicated problem, but it can be solved by various levels and individuals taking action inside their locus of control. “From the country level to the hospital to the nurse in the halls. Every action, no matter how little, matters.”
What’s next?
Palmeiro-Silva shows no signs of slowing down. She’s currently tracking heat measures and their impact on workers’ health, and she’s about to start a new project in Latin America examining the connection between temperature and cognitive performance in children, funded by Wellcome Trust.
Soon, she will begin a new role as a scientific advisor with Lancet Countdown Latin America, advising on how to track the intersection of climate change and population health, from heat mortality to heat action plans and public engagement.
“There is a need to be super active in this sphere and exit our comfort zone to go for the change that needs to happen,” she said.
Join us in celebrating Palmeiro-Silva
When asked what or who gives her inspiration, Palmeiro-Silva simply said, “Every single person that I talk to. I am super open to learning from everybody – EVERYBODY.”
That openness, combined with rigorous science and a nurse’s heart, is exactly why Palmeiro-Silva is the 2026 Charlotte Brody Award winner.
Please join us in congratulating Palmeiro-Silva. And let her story remind us: whether you work in an ICU, policy office, or community clinic, you have a role to play in protecting environmental health.
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The Charlotte Brody Award is presented annually by Health Care Without Harm and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments to honor nurses who demonstrate outstanding leadership in environmental health.
