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.jpg) The 7th National Conference will focus on the complex interrelationship between the health of the environment and the health of people and other living beings. The Conference’s expected outcome is delivery of a spectrum of problem-solving approaches and tools to facilitate use of comprehensive, systematic, stakeholder-inclusive approaches to better understand and manage the relationships between health and the environment and how to protect the health of the planet and all of its inhabitants.
Humankind—and all life on Earth—depend upon complex, ever changing environments. We secure food, water, shelter, protection from disease, and other physical and psychological benefits from these environments; and they are essential for health and well-being. Yet, scientific approaches to understand and protect the environment and to understand and protect human health remain increasingly separate from one another. This separation poses important and negative effects on both environmental quality and human health. We scarcely recognize or realize that human well-being depends upon an effectively functioning environment and that environmental stresses directly and significantly impact human health
Our ability to recognize or realize how the condition—or health—of our environments can and does affect the health of humans is compromised in subtle ways. There are misconceptions, unexpected linkages, and interests with competing priorities that continue to prevent us from developing solutions to maintaining both environmental health and the health of humans. These constraints are clearly documented in the recent World Health Organization report “Preventing disease through healthy environments: Towards an estimate of the environmental burden of disease.” Significantly, the report finds that many of the environmental factors now posing risk of human disease and death can be modified in simple, proven, cost-effective ways. .jpg)
Finding solutions to complex issues at this interface requires a meeting and mixing of minds, disciplines and perspectives. The conference will provide a venue for this meeting and mixing in the context of developing solutions to the health-environment discontinuity. The conference is designed to demonstrate the interconnectedness of environmental quality and human health. It will describe the need for social institutions, including science, education and decisionmaking to better recognize this reality. It will make the case for a systematic and comprehensive approach to investigating the myriad dimensions of the environmental health / human health interface. It will show the implications and applications of the interconnectedness for society. It will develop approaches that will assist decisionmakers – whether they be national leaders or individuals – to appreciate and utilize this knowledge.
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