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Awards
Given to Audiologist/Environmental Toxins Researcher and Lead Poisoning
Prevention Advocate
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Leo Buchanan, keynote speaker and William A.Hinton Award winner |
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It’s no secret that minority and low-income communities often shoulder
more than their fair share of exposure to pollution sources such as toxic
waste dumps, lead paint and bus fumes–and thus may be at greater risk
for illnesses such as asthma, birth defects and cancer. Addressing these
disparities, a keynote speaker and three panelists discussed contemporary
issues in environmental justice at the 2004 William A. Hinton Lecture on
February 25 in Snyder Auditorium. The annual event was jointly sponsored
by HSPH and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH).
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Christine Ferguson |
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William A. Hinton was one of the first African Americans to graduate
from Harvard Medical School, where he later served as Clinical Professor
of Bacteriology and Immunology. In the 1920s, Hinton developed the widely
used Hinton Test for the diagnosis of syphilis.
HSPH Dean Barry Bloom introduced
Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Christine Ferguson, who said that,
post-September 11th, fear of public health hazards has reached an all-time
high–just as resources to address them have diminished considerably.
To maximize those resources, Ferguson described a desire to work with HSPH
to boost statewide emergency preparedness and tackle environmental health
concerns about asthma, lead and other pollutants.
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Suzanne Condon |
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Panel moderator Suzanne Condon, Associate Commissioner and Director of the
Center for Environmental Health at MDPH, noted significant disparities across
the country in health effects from exposures to toxins in urban and rural
areas. To underscore the rationale for the growing "environmental justice"
movement, Condon cited statistics showing a rate of childhood asthma in
urban areas that is more than twice the national average, an incidence of
lupus among women of color that is three to four times that of Caucasian
women, and a higher prevalence of exposure to PCBs among lower-income groups
in rural Massachusetts..
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Dean Barry Bloom |
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Keynote speaker Leo Buchanan, Director of Audiology at the Shriver Center
at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, received the Hinton
Award. In his presentation, he highlighted several surveys conducted over
the past two decades by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
that indicate a substantially higher prevalence of elevated blood lead
levels (exceeding the international standard of 10 micrograms per deciliter)
among children in African-American and lower-income households. Buchanan
stressed that elevated blood lead levels have been linked to learning
disabilities, behavioral problems, and visual and hearing impairments.
To illustrate, he recounted his work in a recent study of the effect
of lead exposures on the hearing ability of the population of La Victoria,
Ecuador. In this small village, most lead pollution comes from a kiln
used to produce lead-glaze coating for clay roof tiles. When Buchanan
and his colleagues instituted an educational program in La Victoria that
provided parents with test results of elevated blood lead levels in their
children, the town’s parents began to keep their children away from
the kiln. As a result, the mean blood lead level went down from 40 to
20 micrograms/deciliter.
Following the keynote address, three panelists examined what they termed
environmental injustices in the greater Boston area and strategies to
rectify them.
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Sonia Alleyne |
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Sonia Alleyne, co-chair of the Lead Action Collaborative, a partnership
of non-profit organizations working toward reducing the incidence of childhood
lead poisoning in Boston, recalled how she became an activist when her daughter
showed an elevated blood lead level of 13 micrograms per deciliter. She
said she was charged $54,000 to de-lead her house in 2000. (The City of
Boston's "Get the Lead Out" program paid for the cost and placed
a lien on the property. After five years, half of the cost will be forgiven,
leaving the remaining balance as a lien that will need to be paid back to
the City if and when the property is sold, Alleyne later explained.)
Noting that the limited stock of affordable housing in Boston is plagued
by lead paint, the Collaborative aims to raise awareness of the issue
and boost funding for remediation efforts.
"The Lead Action Collaborative will continue to be a voice for the
voiceless," she said.
After her remarks, Alleyne received the Rebecca Lee Award, named for
the first African-American female physician in the U.S.; Lee graduated
from the New England Medical College, a precursor to the Boston University
School of Medicine, in 1864.
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Dolores Acevedo-Garcia |
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Dolores Acevedo-Garcia,
assistant professor of society, human development, and health at HSPH,
identified racial and ethnic segregation as a key factor in reducing the
quality of neighborhood environments and health. Citing a study conducted
in 2000, she reported that African Americans experience the highest level
of segregation in Boston and may therefore be particularly at risk for
poor health outcomes. Acevedo-Garcia recommended that the city raise awareness
about socioeconomic and health disparities across Boston neighborhoods,
launch detailed investigations of the influences of neighborhood environments
on health outcomes, and use data from those studies to advance local health
improvement initiatives.
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Penn Loh |
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Penn Loh, Executive Director of Alternatives for Community and Environment
(ACE), a 10-year-old community advocacy group that seeks environmental
justice for communities of color and low income in New England, cleared
up one common misconception about the issue.
"The environmental justice movement is not about spreading around
pollution so everyone is equally affected," he said, "but about
empowering those communities most burdened by environmental problems to
solve them."
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Howard Koh |
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Loh described a recent effort by ACE to empower teens in Roxbury to reduce
the environmental impact of the 15 truck and bus depots concentrated in
their neighborhood, which has an asthma hospitalization rate that is five
times the state average. With ACE’s assistance, the students convinced
the MBTA to replace 60 percent of its diesel buses with compressed natural
gas buses and to require bus drivers to reduce vehicle idling time. Loh
also highlighted ACE’s efforts to oppose Boston University’s proposal
to build in the South End a Biosafety Level 4 research laboratory that will
investigate disease pathogens that could be used by terrorists as bioweapons.
The symposium concluded with closing remarks by Howard Koh, Associate
Dean for Public Health Practice at HSPH.
--MD
Harvard Public Health
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