No abstract available. / Thesis (MPA)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2005.

It began with the loss of the use of her forearm, then the use of her other arm, and then her legs. Headaches became severe migraines; seizures occurred. Her body wasted away and she became needle-thin. A neurologist, a psychiatrist, her family physician could not determine what was wrong. A local specialist, however, recognized the symptoms as those he had seen in others over several years. Concerned that the symptoms might be related to environmental toxins, he alerted the local health authorities. His concerns and those of his patients were not taken seriously, not, that is, until he and his patients coined a name for the symptoms: Somatic Chemically Induced Dysfunction Syndrome, or SCIDS. What was expected to be simply a name for a set of symptoms suddenly became contested. A social problem was defined, and experts from Agriculture, Health, and the Environment Ministries entered the fray. Unrelated at first, degradation of the local aquifer, death of wildlife, and a noticeable decrease in small mammals in the area had been noted. Questions were raised about the links between the two; between the environment and health. Somatic Chemically Induced Dysfunction Syndrome (SCIDS) suggested a causal link with chemicals, moreover with chemicals in the environment. This raised doubts in people's minds about the responsibility and accountability of government, and the authority of experts and the role of science was thrown into question. A private trouble became a public issue. The ensuing conflict revolved around naming and owning a social problem. Both experts and persons with SCIDS invoked science to make their case. Sides were drawn and the conflict was played out to the wider public through the media. It has been commented that research about illnesses of the environment have a bias towards the stories of the sufferers. This dissertation focuses mainly, though not exclusively, on the stories of the various experts involved. Set within the wider frame of social constructionism, I address the ways in which private troubles become public issues and are defined as a social problem. The frames used in this contest to wrest both ownership and thus management of the problem are investigated. The impact of this on a local social movement is examined.

Asthma prevalence is increasing worldwide and the causes of this increase are largely unknown. There is increasing recognition of the importance of early environmental exposures in childhood asthma development. Outdoor air pollution has been shown to trigger asthma symptoms but its role in incident disease remains controversial. To address these questions, I investigated the effect of in utero and first year of life exposure to ambient air pollution on risk of asthma diagnosis in a nested case-control study. All children born in Southwestern British Columbia in 1999 and 2000 (N=37,401) were assessed for incidence of asthma diagnosis at age 3 - 4 years using hospitalization and primary physician records. Exposure to ambient air pollution was estimated for the gestational period and first year of life using high-resolution pollution surfaces derived from government monitoring station data as well as land use regression models adjusted for temporal variation. Conditional logistic regression analyses were used to estimate effects of CO, NO, NO₂, PM₁₀, PM₂.₅, O₃, SO₂, black carbon, wood smoke and proximity to roads and point sources on asthma diagnosis. Elevated risks of asthma diagnosis were observed with increased early life exposure to CO, NO, NO₂, PM₁₀, SO₂, black carbon and proximity to point sources. Effects were generally larger for first year exposures than in utero exposures, and larger for girls than boys. The results indicate that early life exposure to air pollution is associated with increased risk of asthma diagnosis in early childhood. Although the effect sizes are small, air pollution exposure in urban areas is ubiquitous so may have significant effects at the population level. These results should be confirmed when children are older and asthma diagnosis is more robust.

<p> Multidisciplinary scholars have argued the importance of nature in human health for the past several decades (Kellert &amp; Wilson, 1993; Roszak, 1992), and numerous researchers have identified the positive effects of nature on human wellness (Brymer, Cuddihy, &amp; Sharma-Brymer, 2010; Kuo, 2010). The profession of counseling is based on the philosophy of human wellness (Myers, 1992), although the current multidisciplinary wellness models (Myers &amp; Sweeney, 2008) seem to overlook the wellness benefits of nature. As a way to begin the systematic exploration of nature in professional counseling, Reese and Myers (2012) developed the construct of EcoWellness and described the construct as the missing link in holistic wellness models in counseling. They recommended that the next step in exploring the construct included the development of an instrument operationalizing EcoWellness and its underlying constructs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to develop and assess the initial validity and reliability of the Reese EcoWellness Inventory (REI). </p><p> The researcher utilized a six-step instrument development method that included the pilot testing of an initial 111-item instrument with a convenience sample of college students (<i>N</i> = 264). After modification of the REI, a revised 62-item instrument was tested and evaluated with a simple random sample recruited from Researchmatch.org (<i>N</i> = 853). Participants completed the REI, the Five-Factor Wellness Inventory (Myers &amp; Sweeney, 2005b), and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale Short Form (Strahan &amp; Gerbasi, 1972) in testing the initial validity and reliability of the REI. Results of confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses and the associated univariate tests demonstrated a mixed picture of the instrument's validity and reliability. A lower-level factor model was tested and it was found to possess adequate model fit. It was determined that the second-order factor of EcoWellness dictated the relationships between the lower-level factors. The development and testing of the REI provides an initial empirical foundation for the integration of nature into professional counseling and counselor education. Further research is needed to replicate and extend the study findings through utilizing samples more inclusive of national distributions of demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity.</p>

<p> Stakeholder engagement in a health impact assessment (HIA) is a way to involve communities in the decision-making process of a proposed project or policy. Research conducted on the proposed Wishbone Hill Coal Mine (WHM) in Alaska sought to identify if participants felt the stakeholder engagement process used in a recent HIA was able to respond to cultural differences and inequitable distribution of health impacts. Using a qualitative methodology, 12 interviews were conducted with individuals who participated in the WHM HIA. Results indicate that existing issues of trust between the general public, Alaska Native peoples, and the government impact how the findings of an HIA are received by stakeholders. Recommendations were developed from the research findings and are intended to support continued public trust in the use of HIA in the State of Alaska. Recommendations include ensuring HIA practitioner competencies when working with communities, and implementing transparent stakeholder engagement processes.</p>

<p> Air pollution in Beijing is becoming hard to ignore, however, there are no long-term studies examining the particle pollution such as PM 2.5 concentration. This study describes current and predicts future PM 2.5 pollution for a three-year period, 1^st January 2010 to 31^st December 2012, from the U.S. Embassy monitoring site in Chaoyang, Beijing. We calculated the 24-hour and annual PM2.5 concentrations under EPA method and using the Box-Jenkins method to build a SARIMA model (Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average). The results showed the PM2.5 concentration decreased from 2010 to 2012. The 24-hour PM2.5 concentration was 294&mgr;g/m³, ranged from 265.2&mgr;g/m³ to 318.5&mgr;g/m³. And the annual PM2.5 concentration was 94.5&mgr;g/m³ which yearly range from 89.5&mgr;g/m³ to 99.0&mgr;g/m³ and the quarterly value from 73.1&mgr;g/m³ to 108.6&mgr;g/m³. The 24-hours and annual concentration is about 7 to 8 times higher than the US National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). There is an urgent need for long-term studies to guide policy makers to improve the air quality in Beijing.</p>

There is growing evidence of multiple links between human health and the practice and products of agriculture through a complex set of factors including environmental change, exposure to a variety of natural and human-origin stressors, social position, changing behavior, occupation, and access to services. However, in policy initiatives, agriculture and health are often pursued in an unconnected manner. In India’s context, this has immense significance as nearly seventy percent of the total population is involved directly or indirectly with agriculture. The need to be aware of the health implications is therefore especially important. The objective of the study was to examine the changing agricultural scenario in India and the consequences for health. A survey was carried out in 2009, in six villages in Karnataka state, India. The data were collected by in-depth interviews, focus groups discussion, participant observation, laboratory tests (mercury and pesticide residues in rice, and nitrate and fluoride in groundwater) and secondary materials. India has undergone a rapid transformation in agriculture and has achieved remarkable success in food production. The nation has followed the strategies of the popular ‘Green Revolution’, including promotion of high yielding seeds, monoculture, extensive use of agrochemicals and large scale management of land and water resources. Modern agriculture has improved the socioeconomic and nutritional status of the population. However, the traditional coarse cereals and pulses have been replaced by mill-polished less nutritious rice. Extensive mechanization of agriculture activities has meant reduced physical stress, but fatal accidents and injuries have increased considerably. Along with already existing malnutrition, overweight/obesity has emerged as a new public health challenge. The changing landscape with much standing water and extensive use of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer has augmented the mosquito population, resulting in greater incidence of vector borne diseases such as malaria and Japanese encephalitis. Agrochemicals, fertilizers and pesticides, are applied in excess and often in an irrational manner, without following any norms. Drinking water is contaminated with nitrate and fluoride. Rice samples contain pesticide residues and mercury. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2010-08-04 18:17:42.911

<p> This dissertation examines whether spatial measures of health determinants and health outcomes are being used appropriately and effectively to improve the health of marginalized populations in the United States. I concentrate on three spatial measures that have received significant policy and regulatory attention in California and nationally: access to healthful foods, climate change, and housing quality. I find that measures of these health determinants have both significant limitations and unrealized potential for addressing health disparities and promoting health equity. </p><p> I define spatial triage as a process of using spatial data to screen or select place-based communities for targeted investments, policy action, and/or regulatory attention. Chapter 1 describes the historical context of spatial triage and how it relates to ongoing health equity research and policy. In Chapter 2, I evaluate spatial measures of community nutrition environments by comparing data from in-person store surveys against data from a commercial database. I find that stores in neighborhoods with higher population density or higher percentage of people of color have lower availability of healthful foods and that inaccuracies in commercial databases may produce biased measures of healthful food availability. </p><p> Chapter 3 focuses on spatial measures of climate change vulnerability. I find that currently used spatial measures of "disadvantaged communities" ignore many important factors, such as community assets, region-specific risks, and occupation-based hazards that contribute to place-based vulnerability. I draw from examples of successful actions by community-based environmental justice organizations and reframe "disadvantaged" communities as sites of solutions where innovative programs are being used to simultaneously address climate mitigation, adaptation, and equity goals. </p><p> In Chapter 4, I combine electronic health records, public housing locations, and census data to evaluate patterns of healthcare utilization and health outcomes for low-income children in San Francisco. I find that children who live in redeveloped public housing are less likely to have more than one acute care hospital visit within a year than children who live in older, traditional public housing. These results demonstrate how integrating patient-level data across hospitals and with data from other sectors can identify new types of place-based health disparities. Chapter 5 details recommendations for analytic, participatory, and cross-sector approaches to guide the development and implementation of more effective health equity research and policy.</p>

The core theme of this thesis is the potential contradiction between the objective of economic growth in terms of the sustenance of the natural environment and human health. The basic research theme is the identification of the underlying political and economic processes that relate to rising air pollution and corresponding ill-health in cities. It explores the relationship between air pollution and child ill-health in Houston, a highly developed US city. The analysis points out that since the early 1900s, there has been rampant unregulated economic growth in Houston and that weak environmental protection has contributed to both past and current concentrations of industrial pollution, the net result of which is that the environment is severely damaged and human health is deleteriously affected. The thesis indicates theoretical and epistemological limitations in emerging interpretations and highlights that air pollution and ill-health are not simply physical or social problems but they reflect the integration of biological mechanisms and political and economic priorities. This thesis reconceptualizes the connection between the economy and the environment, integrates abstract and empirical investigation, defines the structural character of spatial relations, combines global economic processes with local patterns of environmental degradation, and links historical growth to ecological and health changes. The field-work consisted of a large comparative household survey to examine local air pollution and child ill-health. It was informed by investigations of institutions and documents and complemented by semi-structured interviews. Clusters of child ill-health were found in low-and high-income households in areas near petrochemicals. While it is clear that the socio-economic circumstances of each household influenced the state of child health, this study demonstrates that spatial relations also played a significant role in the relationship. The procedures and analyses are conceptualized through a critical realist methodology, contextualized in a political-economy approach and framed within a theoretical perspective of historical social relations.

No description available.