Customer Reviews

Ecosystem Change and Public Health: A Global Perspective

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The winds of global environmental change are blowing upon my profession. But are environmental health specialists smelling the foul air that is the future? Or, are they too busy reviewing hot dog stands and commercial dishwasher models, selling cookbooks at their association meetings, approving sprawl-inducing septic systems, and failing to make the connection between global ecological changes and the predicted impacts on their local public health jurisdictions? Is public health practice in the U.S. doomed by its under-funded focus on cig smoke and health, the uninsured, and heart-stopping fat consumption?

While this book will probably be read by mostly PH grad students, the old timers doing time in state and local environmental health depts should take a close look, especiallly chapters on info sources and GIS. For those involved in international env health work, this book is an excellent starting point for a reintroduction to the environment in environmental health work. To its credit, Calif has begun the analysis of climate impacts on water resources, vectors, the epidemiology of mortality from elevated temps, etc. But much more is needed and this book serves as the groundwork for those in the profession who have made that important connection between (failing)ecosystems and the public health of a human population. Following the book, I can see the need in CA for a statewide dialogue on demographics, migration, and local public health.

The only missing topic (due to the pub date) in this release is the environmental health impacts of war, though the chapter on cholera, which is returning with a vengence in war-torn Iraq, is highly relevant.

THAT topic may require a separate book by the time the U.S. has fully ravaged that country, but Seidel introduces this topic in Environmental Health: From Global to Local (2005), edited by Frumkin.

i recieved the product shortly after i placed my order. thank you for being so prompt and honest with my purchase