Eco-epidemiology: On the Need to Measure Health Effects from Global Change |
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| Authors: | Colin L Soskolne Natasha Broemling |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Public Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, 13-103 Clinical Sciences Building, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2G3, Canada, e-mail;(2) Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Summer Student (MD Programme), University of Alberta, Canada |
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| Abstract: | To prevent harm to human health from degrading ecosystems, epidemiologists need useful indicators that are sensitive to those
shifts in health status that might parallel these declines. Traditional measures of health (e.g., life expectancy, infant
mortality) are intuitively linkable to effects from environmental degradation but, in fact, they do not appear to provide
early warning indications of negative ecological impacts on health. Alternative health measures, such as social well-being,
may be needed for epidemiological research. New measures must combine those factors having policy relevance, including sensitive
measures of well-being and of health, with models of those human behaviours that contribute to ecological declines. Exposure
factors (e.g., pollution) made worse by ecosystem changes (e.g., global warming) also are relevant. In addition, epidemiologists
must be able to relate health outcomes not only to the traditional base of geo-political boundaries (e.g., census tracts or
countries), but more appropriately to eco-regions (e.g., climate regions). Only then could direct comparisons of effect be
made between areas that have eco-region as the common base for defining both denominators and numerator events for rate calculations
and comparisons. In conclusion, administrative infrastructure is needed so that meaningful eco-epidemiology can be conducted.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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