RECALIBRATING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH TO MEET 21st CENTURY NEEDS (50m Lecture)

This presentation will demonstrate how public environmental health priorities have changed over the past century and identify a new set of emerging threats to population health. A case will be made for the environmental health profession to engage more aggressively in addressing these threats.
Improvements in water supply, sanitation and housing conditions in the U.S. are among the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, and credited with major reductions in death and disability from infectious disease. In developed nations “new age” conditions are contributing to increases in chronic disease, which now account for 70 percent of all deaths. These conditions include sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, and exposure to toxic chemicals in ambient air and consumer products. Water scarcity has also emerged as key challenge to public health in the decades ahead, as has climate change which is arguably the greatest public health threat ever faced.Effective public health leadership can mitigate these emerging crises, and at the same time help to ensure a healthier and more sustainable future. 

The environmental health profession is well suited to expand its scope of practice to support this broader public health mission. The expansion is best guided by the “determinants of health approach” and focused on efforts to influence improvements in the physical and social environments, and healthy public choices and behaviors. These include land use decisions affecting the built and natural environments, support of integrated water management, access to healthy, locally-produced foods, reduced exposure to toxic substances, and access to information supporting healthy choices and behaviors.