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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Dan Bednarz, PhD, Consultant, 832 E. Hutchinson Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15218, 412-241-2763, danbpgh@verizon.net

Geoffrey Rose made the argument for our field: It is better to be healthy than ill or dead. His purview places Herculean demands on us to identify and plan for public health threats. Further, our discipline acknowledges the Precautionary Principle, which, according to the Wingspread conference in1998, means: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." There are battles over the Precautionary Principle, with the threshold for application often varying according to extra-scientific criteria. This may be lamentable but it is an accurate description of how public health resources are allocated. With this context in mind, I analyze public health's response to Peak Oil, a phenomenon that carries transformational implications for the health of human populations, especially in the industrial nations. Rose's dictum and the Precautionary Principle suggest that Peak Oil should be a “hot topic”, but it is not and we need to know why. This year, 2006, the author contacted all 37 deans of schools of public health to inquire about their knowledge of any studies underway regarding peak oil and public health. Five replied this was a major concern that the discipline should look into immediately; 29 did not reply; and the remainder sent courtesy replies. The literature used to examine the discipline's uneven and wanting cognizance of Peak Oil is that of science studies.

Learning Objectives:

• The presenter will show how public health has overlooked the precautionary principle in assessing environmental signals from “Peak Oil.”
• The presenter will document how the public health internal environment has inhibited macro-environmental scanning through the example of “Peak Oil.”
• The audience will learn how the discipline ignores and pays attention to information from its macro-environment.

Keywords: Community Health, Environmental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No