Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116485

Devon Payne-Sturges, DrPH, Office of Children's Health Protection, U.S. EPA, Ariel Rios Bldg. 1107A, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460, 202-564-2706, payne-sturges.devon@epa.gov, Gilbert C. Gee, PhD, Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, Rm M5224, Ann Arbor, MI 48103, Amy Schulz, PhD, Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, School of Public Health, 5134 SPH II, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, Hal Zenick, PhD, Office of Research and Development, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, MD 105 01, Research Triangle Park, NC 27701, Rachel Morello-Frosch, PhD, MPH, Department of Community Health, School of Medicine & Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University, PO Box 1943, 135 Angell Street, Providence, RI 02912, Kirstin Crowder, MPH, Association of Schools of Public Health, US EPA B105-01, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, Tracey J. Woodruff, Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, US Environmental Protection Agency, 75 Hawthorne St, MC SPE-1, San Francisco, CA 94105, Arlene Rosenbaum, ICF Consulting, 33 Hayden Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421, Charles Lee, PhD, Office of Environmental Justice, USEPA, Ariel Rios Bldg. 1107A, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460, and Charles Wells, PhD, NIEHS, NIH NIEHS 31 CENTER, 111 Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.

Racialized groups and low income populations experience a disproportionate burden of health risks and illness, due in part to excess exposure to environmental hazards, socioeconomic deprivation, and psychosocial stress. Documenting and tracking changes in these exposures requires rigorous measurement tools. Standardized measures of many environmental conditions, especially as relevant to ethnic minorities, are lacking. The challenge is to find valid and reliable measures of environmental risk factors (exposures, susceptibilities, distribution of hazards) and health outcomes associated with environmental hazards.

The EPA's Office of Children's Health Policy, in co-sponsorship with the EPA's Office of Research and Development, the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice, and the University of Michigan School of Public Health Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health and Department of Health Behavior and Health Education will convene a two-day workshop on the science of environmental contributors to health disparities and environmental health indicator development for May 2005. This workshop will produce a summary report on methodological approaches to develop indicators relevant to environmental health disparities that incorporate traditional environmental epidemiology and social science approaches.

We will share these results and discuss strategies to move forward the science of environment-related health disparities.

Learning Objectives:

• articulate a variety of social and environmental factors that contribute to racial and socioeconomic disparities in health;
• identify what data and methods are needed to assess the impact of social and environmental factors on health at the national and local levels
• describe several potential mechanisms for tracking exposures in the social and physical environments that may contribute to health disparities.
• assess how certain indicators and methods for tracking environmental health disparities might effectively guide policy, regulatory decision-making and serve as useful tools for public health practitioners and communities to reduce health disparities.

Keywords: Health Disparities, Environmental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation