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Practical Applications of Medical Geology
March 19-20th 2009, British Geological Survey

"Medical Geology" is defined as the science dealing with the relationships between natural geological factors and health in man and animals, and understanding the influence of environmental factors on the geographical distribution of such health problems. This area of science is aimed at improving the interdisciplinary interactions between environmental and health scientists. The first British Geological Survey meeting concerning the “Practical Applications of Medical Geology” was organised in order to provide a common platform for medical geology practitioners to present and highlight successful applications of interdisciplinary case studies. It facilitated professionals, from industry, regulatory authorities and academia, to discuss their findings and identify problems and scientific solutions to conducting such research. Papers were invited on the following themes:

  • Novel methods for assessing the impact of human and animal exposure to potentially harmful elements, organic contaminants and radionuclides.
  • Chemical and mineral speciation controls on the bioaccessibility of potentially harmful substances in soil and particulates.
  • Trace element deficiency problems in human health and agriculture.
  • The relationships between hazard and risk.
  • Geochemical spatial distribution from maps to microscopic scale.
  • Climate change and its impacts on human health and agriculture.
  • Water and air quality.

The attendance of the meeting and the breadth the topics covered by the oral and poster presentations shows that there is a lively research community and interest in medical geology. A sign that medical geology, despite its interdisciplinary nature, is now coming of age is the emergence of taught courses and qualifications (TC1 and FC4). There is now a strong emphasis on the development of laboratory and field methods (e.g. TC2, TC3, TC5, TC6, P6, P3, P13) combining the geological/geochemical data with biomonitoring and clinical aspects to help quantify the potential hazard to human and animal health (e.g. TC7, TC9, TC10, TC11, P2, P7, P14, P15, P16, P17, P18). There seems to be a consensus that in-vitro tests for the bioaccessibility of inorganic contaminants in soil has reached a stage where the results can be accepted by national regulatory bodies (TC2) and work on organic contaminants is promising but still at an early stage (TC4 ,TC5, P4). There is a growing interest in epidemiological links between the natural environment and disease (FC7, FC8, FC9, P9) and in some instances there are surprising links, such as the silt content of soil and the respiratory health in young children (FC6). Risk assessments are an important tool for human health protection; examples from a variety of applications were presented (FC1, FC2, FC3, P1, P5, P19, P20). These are clearly benefiting from greater collaboration between disciplines and the newly developed tools for monitoring hazards. An interesting finding of many of the human health case studies is the need for a social science input to complement the hard science findings with the social and cultural aspects of the population being studied (FC5). Geochemical mapping continues to be a very important tool for health studies with a number of presentations illustrating hazard maps and spatial links between geochemistry and health (TC3, FC11, P8, P10, P11, P12).

The book of abstracts for the meeting can be accessed via the pdf link.