FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact
Milagros R. Elia
Program Manager, Climate and Clean Energy Advocacy
Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments
milagros@envirn.org
914.455.1165
Nurses Mark National Truck Driver Appreciation Week With Call for Cleaner Trucks as a Public Health Priority
[USA] — As National Truck Driver Appreciation Week begins, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) is joining organizations across the country in honoring the professional truck drivers who keep our economy and our health care system moving — and calling on trucking industry leaders and manufacturers to invest in a cleaner future for the people behind the wheel and the communities along their routes.
Truck drivers perform one of the country’s most essential jobs, delivering the food, medicine, and equipment communities and hospitals rely on every day. They also spend their working lives exposed to diesel exhaust, a pollutant classified as carcinogenic. Nurses see the downstream effects of that exposure firsthand: asthma attacks, cardiovascular strain, and respiratory illness that hit hardest in communities along heavily trafficked freight corridors.
In response to National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments Executive Director Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN issued the following statement:
“Truck drivers deserve more than our gratitude, they deserve working conditions that support their health and allow them to return home safely to their families. Investing in cleaner trucks is a meaningful way to honor these essential workers while protecting children, older adults, and families in communities located near highways, warehouses, and freight corridors.”
“Nurses care for patients whose asthma, heart disease, and respiratory conditions are worsened by transportation pollution. The trucking industry and vehicle manufacturers have both the ability and the responsibility to reduce these preventable health harms. Delaying clean truck progress prolongs harmful exposures and shifts the health burden onto drivers, patients, families, and already overburdened communities.”
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The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization focused solely on the intersection of health and the environment. The mission of the Alliance is to support nurses in promoting planetary health and equity globally by educating and leading the nursing profession, advancing research, incorporating planet-safe practice, and influencing policy. http://enviRN.org
