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Environment & Human Health: Joining the Dots - The 25th European Conference of the Environmental Geochemistry and Health Society, Liverpool, June 2007.
Dr Alex G Stewart (Consultant in Health Protection) Cheshire & Merseyside
Health Protection Unit, Countess of Chester Health Park, Chester CH2 1UL,
UK
email: Alex.Stewart@hpa.org.uk
SEGH has a well established track record for inter-disciplinary work in issues affecting the environment and human health, but has recently been dominated by geochemists, with insufficient input from the medical and public health side of the equation.
However, making multidisciplinary dialogue work can be very hard: vocabularies, experiences, expectations and attitudes can all be radically different. Perceptions of the ‘opposition’ can be stereotypical and stultifying. Opportunities to work together for a common goal can be either threatening or even, sometimes, energising.
The 25th European Conference of the Society, held in Liverpool in June 2007 and hosted by the Cheshire & Merseyside Health Protection Unit [part of the Health Protection Agency www.hpa.org.uk/ ], offered an opportunity to reverse this.
The conference was followed by a Natural Environment Research Council - sponsored 2½ day interactive workshop. A field trip to local sites linked the two meetings, intertwining environmental and human issues in the real world and preventing the days becoming focused solely on theory.
Delegates came from the health sector, local government, academia and industry, and ranged from postgraduate students through practitioners and researchers to a Vice-Chancellor, a geochemist by training and experience.
One of the unusual features of the plenary sessions in the conference was the pairing of speakers and topics. For example, a talk on the Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) model from Ian Martin of the Environment Agency was followed by David Russell of the Chemical Hazards and Poisons Division of the Health Protection Agency on the evidence for health effects from contaminated land.
Such pairing was much appreciated by the delegates, particularly as speakers were able to present technical information in terms understandable by nonspecialists. The high quality oral and poster presentations, including several by students, further contributed to a useful interchange of ideas and the making of friendships and interdisciplinary links.
In the workshop, entitled MULTITUDE (Multiple Links Towards Integrating
Teams for Understanding of Disease and Environment), there were five separate
streams, with delegates able to attend and contribute to three. The themes
covered the breadth of environmental issues affecting health:
1. Transport and dynamics of toxic pollutants in the natural environment
and their effect on human health, integrating and quantifying risks to
human health from toxic pollutants [including low level concentrations],
their environmental pathways and their effects in people.
2. Uncertainty in risk assessment, epidemiology and regulation, determining
a multi-disciplinary approach towards estimating and reducing the uncertainty
inherent in taking a risk-based approach to environmental hazards to human
health.
3. Social, economic and behavioural factors in the genesis and health
impact of environmental hazards, assessing the impact and contribution
of social, economic and behavioural factors on health that is disrupted
by environmental toxins and pollution.
4. Strategies for improving health in contaminated situations, determining
the best multi-disciplinary practices and approaches that will both alleviate
contamination and improve health outcomes.
5. The effects of multiple toxic pollutants on health, determining practical
approaches to the investigation and alleviation of pollution by multiple
toxins.
Each theme was introduced by two short presentations, familiarizing the participants with the issues as seen by health and environmental professionals. Delegates and workshop leaders were encouraged to cross fertilise each new discussion with input from other workshops and from previous iterations of the same workshop.
The evaluation of the four days was very encouraging for the organising
committee, with average scores for all the speakers of over 80% and for
the MULTITUDE workshop of over 90%. This, plus verbal feedback, encourages
us that we achieved the objectives of the meetings of
• providing authoritative and accessible reviews of key issues from both
perspectives,
• identifying and addressing gaps in our current understanding and
• initiating interdisciplinary collaboration.
The proceedings of the meeting will be published in Environmental Geochemistry and Health [http://www.springerlink.com/content/0269-4042 ], acting as a focused review and starting point for further development of this integrated approach.
The next meeting of the society is in Athens, 31st March to 3rd April 2008 (http://conferences.geol.uoa.gr/segh2008/), where we hope to hold another, shorter, workshop on risk communication, as well as the usual scientific conference.
See you there!
Sponsors of SEGH 25th European meeting
Health Protection Agency;
Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University;
Natural Environment Research Council;
Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs;
Economic and Social Research Council;
Ministry of Defence;
Environment Agency;
ThermoFisher Scientific;
United Utilities.