[February 11, 2011] UVI to hold climate change forum Tweet Feb 10, 2011 (The Virgin Islands Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Researchers with the University of the Virgin Islands' Caribbean Exploratory and Research Center will hold a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Friday about the public health impacts of climate change. The public is invited to attend and learn about the connection between climate change and public health in the Virgin Islands. The research center is seeking input on the best ways to communicate information to the public about adapting to climate change, such as extreme weather, flooding and shoreline loss due to sea level rise, and related public health issues, such as fish poisoning and dengue fever. The meeting is a forum for evaluating methods Virgin Islanders currently use to communicate climate-related health challenges and help researchers determine how to get people to change their behavior. "The only way we will be effective is if the community tells us what works for them," Dr. LaVerne Ragster said in a prepared statement. "We would be unwise to presuppose how we should communicate with the public to be effective or change behavior, and our objective is to change behavior in a positive way ." The meeting will take place via videoconference, between the UVI Administration and Conference Center's first floor conference room on St. Thomas and the theatre of the Melvin Evans Center on UVI's St. Croix campus. For more information on the impact of climate change on public health in the Caribbean, visit www.myhealthwhatsclimategottodowithit.com. To see more of The Virgin Islands Daily News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]