Future of Environmental Health Takes Center Stage
The Hudson River is dredged for toxic PCBs. Coral reefs are dying. The West Nile virus spreads across America, and the ozone hole continues to grow. These are headlines of daily modern life, and they beg the questions of how will global change affect future generations and what is on the current environmental agenda to avoid past mistakes?
These issues were the topic of "Global Health--Human Health: The Environmental Perspective," the most recent discussion in the Future of Public Health Millennial Symposium Series hosted by Dean Barry Bloom on December 7 in Snyder Auditorium.
Speakers Devra Davis from the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University, Anthony McMichael of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Éric Dewailly of Université Laval in Québec shared their respective opinions with insight, humor, and wisdom that often overlapped in theme.
The modern world is becoming more connected, creating related environmental concerns. Industrialization and technology create bigger cities, more cross-national travel, and international trade with emerging markets. Some results are the spread of infectious diseases, climate changes from greenhouse gases, and stress on natural ecosystems.
Adding
to those are the drastic impacts of climate alteration: extreme weather
conditions, chemical hazards, ecosystem changes, social and demographic
disruption, and loss of biodiversity. Experts agree that the science of
these problems is an exceeding challenge for the emerging millennium.
Panelist Éric Dewailly suggested these problems may be addressed if the field of environmental health prioritizes its agenda.
Time is a variable when measuring exposure, he explained. Levels of carbon monoxide in a skating rink might be revealed in one month, whereas pesticides in the food chain might be measured over years. Climate changes and their effects on humans might take hundreds of years to measure. Yet, time is another matter entirely when environmental problems reach a crisis level. Identifying which issues are of immediate concern combined with international cooperation could aid progress in the field, said Dewailly.
Devra Davis discussed the killer smog that overtook Denora, Pennsylvania in 1948 and left many in the community dead or sick with health problems for years to come. Today, it is hard to imagine Denora inhabitants, Davis said, washing walls weekly to clean off pollution or driving with headlights in the afternoon due to polluted visibility.
Davis reminded the audience that high rates of air pollution currently exist in cities in India and China. She reported that air pollution is the leading cause of death in children worldwide. Health threats of air pollution are far from over, she concluded.
Anthony McMichael pointed out that lessons can be learned from past environmental problems as models of study result from disruption and the search for knowledge. The environmental picture remains mixed, however, with both advances and obstacles. He emphasized that public literacy about environmental health benefits the field. Examples can be found in contemporary life: restaurants have designated smoking sections, recycling is a bigger part of peoples' lives, and words like 'gas guzzler' are ubiquitous.
Governments too have become more aware of environmental threats. Recently, officials from 122 countries agreed to ban or limit the world's worst industrial toxins.
The next scheduled Dean's Millennial Symposium will be "The Privatization
of Public Health: What Role Government" on Thursday, January 18 in
the Snyder Auditorium.
