Global Environmental Health In The 21st Century

Biological threats like SARS and natural disasters like the tsunami in Indonesia have devastated entire regions, and quickly exhausted budgetary resources. As the field of environmental health continues to evolve, scientists and others must focus on gaining a better understanding of the links between human health and various environmental factors, and on creating new paradigms and partnerships needed to address these complex environmental health challenges facing society. Global Environmental Health in the 21st Century: From Governmental Regulations to Corporate Social Responsibility: Workshop Summary discusses the role of industry in environmental health, examines programs designed to improve the overall state of environmental health, and explores how governmental and corporate entities can collaborate to manage this industry. Stakeholders in both the public and private sectors are looking for viable solutions as the complexity of societal problems and risks associated with management and varying regulatory standards continue to increase. Global Environmental Health in the 21st Century draws critical links and provides insight into the current shape of global environmental health. The book recommends expanding environmental management systems (EMS) to encompass a more extensive global network. It also provides a complete assessment of the benefits and costs resulting from implementation of various environmental management systems.

This concisely written and easy-to-read resource provides information on emerging issues and valuable historical context that enables students to better understand a broad range of environmental health topics, from pollution to infectious diseases, natural disasters, and waste management. As technology enables better insight into the world we live in, we are increasingly aware of environmental health concerns and risks, from contaminated air and water to infectious diseases and light and noise pollution. Because the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our environment, everyone should be informed about issues in environmental health. Environmental Health in the 21st Century: From Air Pollution to Zoonotic Diseases presents hundreds of encyclopedic entries written by expert researchers and practitioners, a history of environmental health, and interviews with subject experts that broadly survey the field of environmental health. The set covers myriad subjects in environmental health, including all types of environmental pollution; the spread of communicable diseases and other issues in the health sciences; waste management practices; the effects of climate change on human health; children's environmental health concerns; environmental health problems unique to the urban environment; and emerging threats such as the Zika virus and hospital-acquired infections. Readers will learn about steps they can take to reduce their environmental risk, understand the effects of key international treaties and conventions and the contributions of key figures in environmental health, and also reflect on potential solutions for global challenges in environmental pollution, health sciences, energy and climate, waste management, and the built environment. No other book on the market today addresses the environmental health field in such a comprehensive manner, with the latest information provided by expert practitioners, all packed into two concise volumes.

Perhaps no other public policy issue has greater potential to affect some of the most significant economic, political, social, and ethical changes of the 21st century than global health. In this book, a scholar/physician team authors a comprehensive introduction to global health issues and emphasises the potential of public health intervention to improve the longevity and quality of human life across the globe. The authors have lived and worked in Africa as well as in medically underserved areas of the United States, so they write with firsthand experience and authority. Using themes of interconnectedness, globalisation, and united concern from citizens, this book encourages readers to consider the role that they might play as engaged citizens in taking on the global public health challenges of the 21st century including everything from AIDs and flu to tobacco, obesity, and threats in conflict zones.

The most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century have the potential to alter the course of life on this planet. Global warming, toxic waste, water and air pollution, acid rain, and shrinking energy supplies are frightening challenges that may threaten our future if we do not face up to them.p Global Environmental Challenges provides important information and gives us hope about the environment. This book first helps us to grasp these difficulties, then shows us the choices we can make. How long to leave a light on, whether to take the car, the train, or bicycle to work, whether to recycle or throw away, whether to vote to curb continued suburban sprawl-all of these decisions can make a difference.p This collection of some of the best essays and articles on the environment comes from a variety of sources, including journals, magazines, websites of ecological/conservation organizations, and other publications.p Five major sections investigate the interaction of population growth,consumption, and environment; the emerging crisis in freshwater around the globe; global climate and atmosphere (including global warming); biodiversity loss; and the concept of sustainable development-using natural resources to place future human development on a sustainable path. The final section on sustainable development reveals how we can take action. As individuals, we can make a difference readily and easily without making huge personal sacrifices. As societies, we can work together in a global community of interest to sustain the earth.p This valuable resource offers readers a better understanding of our environmental problems and presents solutions to improving the health of theplanet.p

This is a summary of the workshop Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment: A New Vision of Environmental Health for the 21st Century. The goal of this workshop was to emphasize the connection between human health and the natural, built, and social environments. This workshop integrated talks from many fields and created a dialogue among various environmental health stakeholders. The language presented in this respect should not be viewed as an endorsement by the Environmental Health Sciences Roundtable or the Institute of Medicine of what action is needed for the future, but rather as an effort to synthesize the various perspectives presented.

The close of the first decade of the 21st century posed additional pressing environmental issues related to human activities and their effects on the planet. The need to protect the planet seems frequently to be in conflict with the need to feed the earth

Earth at Risk in the 21st Century offers critical interdisciplinary reflections on peace, security, gender relations, migration and the environment, all of which are threatened by climate change, with women and children affected most. Deep-rooted gender discrimination is also a result of the destructive exploitation of natural resources and the pollution of soils, water, biota and air. In the Anthropocene, the management of human society and global resources has become unsustainable and has created multiple conflicts by increasing survival threats primarily for poor people in the Global South. Alternative approaches to peace and security, focusing from bottom-up on an engendered peace with sustainability, may help society and the environment to be managed in the highly fragile natural conditions of a ‘hothouse Earth’. Thus, the book explores systemic alternatives based on indigenous wisdom, gift economy and the economy of solidarity, in which an alternative cosmovision fosters mutual care between humankind and nature. • Special analysis of risks to the survival of humankind in the 21st century. • Interdisciplinary studies on peace, security, gender and environment related to global environmental and climate change. • Critical reflections on gender relations, peace, security, migration and the environment • Systematic analysis of food, water, health, energy security and its nexus. • Alternative proposals from the Global South with indigenous wisdom for saving Mother Earth.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Longstanding evidence of the links between the environment, development and human health has led to a recognition of the need for public health policy to address sustainable development in low, middle and high income countries. One of the great challenges for public health practitioners is to understand and try to modify the relationship between the environment and health. This book examines the underlying concepts and history of environmental public health including the key factors: • Air pollution • Chemical contamination • Climate hazards • Housing and the built environment This book has been fully revised to discuss recent international environmental conventions and legislation in the fast-moving world of global environmental health. UK and global issues are covered, such as urbanization and the impact of transport on air pollution, housing and indoor air quality, and the impact of environmental change on high and low income countries. Understanding Public Health is an innovative series published by Open University Press in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where it is used as a key learning resource for postgraduate programmes. It provides self-directed learning covering the major issues in public health affecting low, middle and high income countries. "The fully revised second edition presents the wide range of environmental issues that are relevant to public health with academic rigour, but loses none of the ease of use for self-directed study of the first edition, with several new activities and feedback within each chapter." Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis, Head of Environmental Change Department, Public Health England, UK “The broadening of the traditional scope of environmental health is clearly presented in this book. The 19th century view of this branch of public health still prevalent among public health practitioners has finally been updated, with a change to a global perspective. Energy choices, climate change, ecosystem services, waste are now appropriately included as environmental factors affecting health, and through this lens traditional topics of air, water and soil can be re-interpreted. This overview provides a solid foundation for all public health practitioners intending to include environmental health as part of a renewed mainstream public health capable of engaging with the full range of environmental challenges to sustainable health and wellbeing in contemporary societies.” Giovanni Leonardi, Head of the Environmental Epidemiology Group, Public Health England, UK