October 27, 2025 | Originally published in Jackson Advocate
By: Dr. Selika Sweet
This year, I am honored to serve as a 2025 Climate and Health Equity Fellow, a program that trains physicians from underrepresented backgrounds to lead in climate and health advocacy. My journey has taken me from monitoring air quality with residents in Gloster to studying heat exhaustion risks in athletes. Again and again, I have seen how growth, politics, and the environment collide – nowhere more urgently than along the Mississippi–Tennessee line, where the futures of DeSoto County and Memphis are bound together by the air we breathe.
On September 18, I drove up Highway 55 from Jackson to a community forum in Southaven. The city sits directly on the Mississippi–Tennessee state line, just minutes from Memphis. Cross Elvis Presley Boulevard or I-55 and in no time you’ve left Tennessee for Mississippi… READ THE FULL ARTICLE>
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health or its members.