Environment Health And Sustainable Development

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

This book examines the underlying concepts, the history of environmental health, and the key factors that affect public health including air pollution, water contamination, industrial hazards and agricultural hazards.The increasing impact of global environmental issues is explored as they affect countries throughout the world.

Environmental sustainability efforts require a great deal of engagement and political will, ranging from local communities to state departments. Science diplomats—from experts and scientists to spokespersons and ambassadors—can help facilitate at all levels and yield valued resources from technology sharing, capacity building, and knowledge exchanges. This book explores the importance of sustained international scientific cooperation, building community resilience, and the role of political will in sustainability and diplomacy. It shows how even small diplomatic efforts can influence myriad issues, from overfishing to human rights negotiations to global carbon emission reduction. Features: • Examines various topics such as global climate change, arid environments, water security and governance, trans-boundary conflict and cooperation, urban and rural resilience, and public health. • Presents case studies from various geographic regions through the lens of diplomacy, including the US–Mexico border, the Gulf of California, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and China. • Discusses how building networks of people, organizations, and countries engaged in science diplomacy is crucial for mutual growth and for overcoming conflicting political stances. Sustainable Development for the Americas: Science, Health and Engineering Policy and Diplomacy provides a useful resource for diplomats, policymakers, students, and decision-makers. It provides numerous examples of how using science and technology for policy and diplomacy is essential to finding common ground among nations for a collective global benefit.

Global Development Goals and Linkages to Health and Sustainability is the summary of a public three-part webinar series hosted by the Global Environmental Health and Sustainable Development Innovation Collaborative between October and December, 2012. Experts within the fields of environmental and global health and members of government, academia, and civil society discussed global development goals that will focus on sustainable development to inform the Rio+20 post-2015 development agenda framework, which will likely be adopted at the September 2015 UN General Assembly. This report focuses on possible health-related measures and metrics that can be utilized for creating new Sustainable Development Goals as the Millennium Development Goals sunset in 2015, using existing measurements that can be adapted to track progress of global sustainable development and human health.

Longstanding evidence of the links between the environment and health have led to a recognition of the need for sustainable development. This is equally true 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 in the face of development. This book examines the underlying concepts, the history of environmental health, and the key factors that affect public health including: air pollution; water contamination; industrial hazards; and, agricultural hazards. The increasing impact of global environmental issues is explored as they affect countries throughout the world.

Radical changes in the biosphere and human interaction with the environment are increasingly impacting on the health of populations across the world. Diseases are crossing the species barrier, and spreading rapidly through globalised transport systems. From new patterns of cancer to the threat of global pandemics, it is imperative that public health practitioners acknowledge the interdependence between the sustainability of the environment and the sustainability of the human species * Why are issues of global and local sustainability of increasing impotance to the public's health? * Why do issues of sustainability require new practices within the professions of public health? * How can future and current public health practitioners develop those new practices? Drawing on scientific evidence of global and local environmental changes, Sustainability and Health offers a thorough background and practical solutions to the overlapping issues in environment and health. It examines potential and existing responses to global and local environment and health issues involving individuals, community, industry and government. The authors introduce a range of emerging conceptual frameworks and theoretical perspectives, link IT and epidemiology and explain how scoping can link program design, delivery, data collection and evaluation in projects from their very beginning. Public health practitioners need to be able to manage health issues that cut across environmental, economic and social systems and to develop the capacity for leadership in facilitating change. Incorporating learning activities, readings, international case studies and an open learning approach, this is a valuable resource for students of public and environmental health, as well as medical, environmental and health science professionals.

In 1992 world leaders met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to reaffirm the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that was established on June 16, 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21 by the member states which is a framework for the transition to a more sustainable world. In 2012 the members gathered to assess and reaffirm the importance of progress towards the efforts of Agenda 21. In response to this the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine held a workshop to inform the policies that are discussed at the 2012 Earth Summit. The workshop, held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts on July 25-26, 2011, focused on the issue of sustainability and health as well as the linkages that are currently present between the two. The workshop included presentations and discussions which are summarized in Public Health Linkages with Sustainability: Workshop Summary. The report presents how different areas of public health, such as food and water resources, link to sustainability and opportunities or venues that can be examined.

This book aims to give a contribution to a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of the cross-cutting issues on energy, environment and health research topics in the current world scenario, where nations all over the world are struggling to accomplish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and to ensure sustainable patterns for all. This interdisciplinary implies a commitment between all fields of science, working together to provide knowledge that could result in the promotion of quality of life. At the present, it is evident that not all people benefit from sustainable policies and practices and the communication between health, energy, environmental and social problems is undeniable. A call for different views could be a pathway attracting universities, stakeholders, organizations and civil society to deeply discuss how one solution does not fit all societies. Few publications are coherently handling this matter. This book is expected to fill this gap and to develop an interest in a larger audience working in general sustainable development and cross-cutting issues. This book is produced by the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR). It gives special emphasis to state-of-the-art descriptions of approaches, methods, initiatives and projects from universities, stakeholders, organizations and civil society across the world, regarding cross-cutting issues in energy, environment and health research.