Title: Summaries of Other Upcoming or Recent Annual Meetings and Workshops
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Section/SPIG: Environment
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The Organizing Committee is pleased to invite researchers, policy-makers from industry, government agencies, academia, and local communities to participate in the 3rd International Conference on Safe Water, “Water for Life – Water for all People,” to be held at the Hilton San Diego Resort on Mission Bay, San Diego, Oct. 20-21, 2005.
Access to safe water is the biggest challenge facing the global community in the 21st century. Increasing populations, global conflicts, and natural disasters, such as the December 2004 Tsunami [EDITOR NOTE: and the August-September 2005 aftermath of Hurricane Katrina] have compounded existing problems in many rural and urban communities of the world. Solutions to these issues will be addressed at the 3rd International Conference on Safe Water in San Diego. Participating agencies and institutions from previous International Safe Water conferences include: Coca-Cola, Exxon Mobil, Natural Resources Conservation Services-United States Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Region IV), National Council for Science and the Environment, Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, local farmers, community leaders, and faculty members from over 50 academic institutions. To ensure a broad input and real practical solutions from the participants, this conference will strongly encourage sponsorships from industries. Reports, statements, viewpoints, opinions, review articles and technical papers will be reviewed and published as part of the conference proceedings. Selected peer-reviewed articles will be published in a peer-review journal. Boreholes, Inc., a non-profit organization, whose mission is to ensure that rural communities of the world have access to safe drinking water, is the host of this international conference. For more information, please go to http://www.safewater2005.com or send an e-mail to: boreholes_safewater@yahoo.com.
Submitted by: Maisha Kambon, mik0@cdc.gov
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The Annual meeting of the International Society for Exposure Analysis will be meeting in Tucson, Ariz., from Oct. 30 through Nov. 3.
For details and the current agenda, please see the ISEA Web site, http://www.iseaweb.org. The conference will have several poster and oral sessions, including those that focus on environmental arsenic, pesticides, and community environmental exposures to criteria air pollutants like particles and ozone.
Submitted by: Natalie Freeman, drippond@earthlink.net
Natalie Freeman
drippond@earthlink.net
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An Environmental Health Conference, “Out of Harm’s Way: Preventing Toxic Threats to Child Development in Michigan,” on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005, at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Rackham Graduate School
This day-long conference for health professionals will address the role that environmental toxicants – including metals, solvents, pesticides and other substances – play in neurodevelopmental disorders. Clinical tools to recognize and mitigate, as well as to help to prevent, patient exposures to environmental pollutants will be provided. In addition, methods of integrating public health and clinical work with environmental advocacy will be discussed. Expert faculty will present the core curriculum. Local health professionals with expertise in children’s environmental health issues will present workshops or other sections of the program. This conference is sponsored by the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Michigan State Medical Society, Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Association on Mental Retardation, the Ecology Center, and the Center for Children’s Health and Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. For more information, please contact Lauren Zajac at the Ecology Center.
Lauren Zajac
lauren@ecocenter.org
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Summary about the Environmental Health Disparities Workshop, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, May 24-25, 2005
Community members, scientists, and policy-makers convened to discuss how environmental conditions may promote health disparities. Although research suggests that environmental conditions can cause gaps in illness between disadvantaged and advantaged groups, there is yet no systematic effort to track these conditions over time. Without attention to trends, it is difficult to assess whether progress is indeed being made by policy actions and regulations.
Participants of this workshop sought to build a base from which to set future tracking efforts. One unusual aspect of this workshop was the attention paid to broader social factors, including residential segregation, the distribution of power, the presence of institutionalized racism, and the production of health from multiple levels.
The tracking of environmental health disparities does not simply mean the tracking of mortality rates, specific illnesses or of particular environmental hazards (e.g. soil lead). Rather, participants suggested that the tracking of illness and physical and environmental toxins must occur alongside the tracking of social conditions, including residential segregation, poverty and social attitudes. Race/ethnicity and economic status are fundamental and critical factors to consider in tracking both physical and social environmental conditions.
Conference organizers Devon Payne-Sturges (APHA member, Environment Section) and Gilbert C. Gee (APHA member, Asian Pacific Islander Caucus) are preparing a report of the workshop’s proceedings alongside several scientific manuscripts, which will be made available.
CRECH and the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health joined the EPA and the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as co-sponsors of this workshop. In attendance were also representatives from Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment, the Coalition for West Oakland Revitalization, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Urban Habitat, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NIEHS, the U.S. EPA and several state agencies and universities.
Devon Payne-Sturges
Payne-Sturges.Devon@epamail.epa.gov