A panel of specialists will discuss "Contemporary Issues in Environmental Justice" at the 2004 William A. Hinton Lecture on February 25 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Snyder Auditorium. The lecture is presented by HSPH and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The speakers are: Leo Buchanan, director of audiology, Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities Program, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, UMASS Medical School; Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, an assistant professor in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at HSPH; Penn Loh, executive director, Alternatives for Community and Environment; and Sonia Alleyne, community relations manager, Sovereign Bank, New England.

A former HSPH instructor, William A. Hinton founded one of the first schools for laboratory medical techniques and served as chief of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Wasserman Laboratory in 1915. He is recognized for creating the "Hinton test," used throughout the world for more than four decades to diagnose syphilis. Hinton was also one of the first African-American graduates of HMS.
For more information, contact monique.thompson@state.ma.us or bljohnso@hsph.harvard.edu.

Burton Singer to Discuss Malaria and Urbanization

Burton Singer, Charles and Marie Robertson Professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, will speak on "Urbanization, Malaria and Development" on February 25. The lecture will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at William James Hall, Room 1, 33 Kirkland Street in Cambridge. The talk was postponed from December 8 due to weather conditions. Co-sponsors of the event are the Office of the Provost, HSPH Office of the Dean and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. The talk is part of the "Lectures on Population at Harvard" series.

According to an abstract provided by the speaker, malaria has historically been viewed as a disease of rural poverty. However, rapid urbanization of sub-Saharan Africa, with 54 percent of the population projected to live in cities by the year 2010, is changing the character of transmission and therefore needed control strategies. Singer and his colleagues have focused on the growth of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and their strategies for mitigating malaria and other health problems. The interface between health issues, especially malaria, and economic development will be discussed via examples that emphasize the potential benefits of engagement between public and private sectors.