Session: Causes and Health Consequences of Environmental Degradation and Social Injustice

Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

2013.0: Sunday, November 05, 2006: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM

CE Hours: 3 contact hours

Causes and Health Consequences of Environmental Degradation and Social Injustice

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview:

Worldwide the greatest effects on the health of individuals and populations results from environmental degradation and social injustice, operating in consort. This CEI will describe the national and global causes and health consequences of these phenomena using a human rights perspective. Causes include overpopulation, pollution, deforestation, global warming, unsustainable agricultural and fishing practices, overconsumption, maldistribution of wealth, the rise of the corporation, the Third World debt crisis, and militarization and wars. Consequences include increased poverty, overcrowding, famine, weather extreme, species loss, acute and chronic medical illnesses, war and human rights abuses, and an increasingly unstable global situation that portends Malthusian chaos and disaster. Human rights topics such as environmental racism and sexism, the Northern/Southern hemispheric divide, and eco-refugees will be covered. Public health professionals are in a unique position to recognize these phenomena and to act at all levels, from interactions with patients, to volunteerism, to service and intervention in areas of great need, to direct political activism and involvement. Specific suggestions for action and curricular change will be discussed.

Organizer(s):

Martin T. Donohoe, MD, FACP

8:00 AM - 8:10 AM

Introductions: Donohoe

8:10 AM - 9:30 AM

Causes and health consequences of environmental degradation & social injustice: A human rights approach, Part I *