Environmental Influences on Human Development and Disease Risk

October 12, 2007, 8:30 a.m.-12 noon
Cowles Auditorium
Hubert H. Humphrey Center
301 – 19th Avenue South
University of Minnesota – West Bank Campus

Featuring keynote speaker Philip J. Landrigan, MD.

More than 125 million of America's children now face historically unprecedented increases in chronic disease and illness such as cancer, autism, asthma, birth defects, AD-HD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), and learning and developmental disabilities. Credible scientific evidence increasingly points to environmental hazards and household chemicals as causing and contributing to many of these diseases.

For public health professionals, students and faculty, and physicians in family medicine, obstetrics and pediatrics, nurses, researchers, scientists, health educators, parents and others concerned about environmental hazards and risks to the health of infants and children.

Video

To watch the streaming video, your computer needs:

• Internet connection with a 56K modem or faster.
• Sound card with speakers so you can hear the audio portion of the course.
• Real Player Software - if it isn't installed on your computer, download it for free at http://real.com.

Click below for videos of October 12, 2007, Roundtable

• Opening Remarks
  John Finnegan and William Toscano
• Environmental Influences on Human Development and Disease Risk
  Philip J. Landrigan
• Panel Response (moderated by William Toscano)
  • John Adgate
  • Mary Gant
  • Pamela Shubat
  • David Walling
• Discussion and Questions with Audience

Program Objectives

After this Roundtable presentation and discussion, participants will be better able to:

• Identify continuing and emerging environmental threats to infant and child health
• Describe changes in government policies and legislation and corporate practices that can protect children from environmental hazards and risks
• Describe issue advocacy efforts needed at local, regional, national and global levels to reduce environmental health threats to infants and children.

Keynote Speaker

Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, Director of the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment, is the Ethel H. Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine and Director of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.  He also holds a Professorship in Pediatrics. Dr. Landrigan is known for his many decades of work in protecting children against environmental threats to health, most notably lead and pesticides. He was a leader in the development of the National Children’s Study, the largest study of children’s health and the environment ever launched in the United States. He was instrumental in establishing a new Office of Children’s Health Protection at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2006 he was honored with the Children’s Environmental Health Champion Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with CHEC’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition.

Speakers and Panelists

John Adgate, PhD, Associate Professor, Major Chair for Environmental Health, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota

John R. Finnegan, Jr., PhD, Dean, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota

Mary Gant, Program Analyst, Office of Science Policy, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

Pamela Shubat, PhD, Supervisor, Health Risk Assessment Unit, Division of Environmental Health, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, Minesota

William Toscano, PhD, Professor and Division Head, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota

David Wallinga, MD, MPA, Director, Food and Health Program, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sponsored by

• The University of Minnesota School of Public Health
  • Dean's Office
  • Centers for Public Health Education and Outreach (CPHEO)
  • Midwest Center for Life-Long-Learning in Public Health (MCLPH)
  • Division of Environmental Health Sciences
• Minnesota Department of Health, Division of Environmental Health
• Health Legacy in Minnesota
• Healthy Child Healthy World