4th Annual NW Environmental Health Conference Presentations Now Available

Presentations for the conference, held on February 10th, 2012, have now been posted.

4^th Annual NW Environmental Health Conference: Bridging Research, Practice, and Policy

The Fourth Annual NW Environmental Health Conference was held on Friday February 10, 2012 in Portland, Oregon at the University Place Hotel.

The conference hosted leading scientists, researchers, and health professionals in the multidisciplinary field of Environmental Health to continue our robust dialogue on the interrelationship between the environment and health and healthcare practices.

The 2012 conference focused on environmental chemical contributors to obesity and diabetes and explore how such health disparities may arise, in part, because of different levels of exposures to chemicals of concern.

In addition to our keynotes, the conference included presentations from numerous national and regional environmental health experts, researchers, educators, and advocates.

Presentations

• 9: 00 — 10:15: Keynote Speakers
• Jerrold Heindel, PhD, an expert on Reproductive & Developmental Toxicology, and the Acting Chief of the Cellular, Organs & Systems Pathobiology Branch of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle, NC
• Jose Bravo, the Executive Director for the Just Transition Alliance in Chula Vista, CA
• 10:30 — 11:30: Concurrent Sessions #1

1. Jerrold Heindel, PhD. Developmental Origins and Environmental Influences of Obesity
2. Jose Bravo, Obesity and Chemicals: A Matter of Environmental Justice
3. Eco Healthy Homes  
4. Regional Strategies: Emerging Bedbug Issue
5. An Advocate’s View of Portland Air Toxics Solutions
• 12:30 — 1:45: Concurrent Sessions #2
1. Panel: 
1. The Effect of Indoor Air Pollutants on Lung Health of Asthmatic Patients 
2. Environmental Justice in West Eugene: Families, Health and Air Pollution
2. Panel: 
1. Environmental Settings and Health Effects (ESHE) Study: Holistic Measures of Health 
2. Mapping Community Attributes to Model Rural Obesity Prevention
3. Panel: 
1. What’s in Your Make Up Bag?  
2. Nail Technicians & Social Determinants of Health: case study of PDX Vietnamese Technicians
4. Panel: 
1. Water Quality Standards, Fish Consumption 
2. Vulnerable Populations in Oregon: A Scientific and Ethical Policy Analysis
• 2:00 — 3:15: Concurrent Sessions #3
1. Search for Social Sustainability Through Promotion of Environmental Health Equity: A Case Study of University-Community Partnership in Portland, Oregon
2. Indigenous Farmworkers Partner to Address Occupational Health and Safety
3. The Role of Community Advisory Committees & Pesticides in Oregon: Strategies based on Community Health and an Ethics of Human Rights
4. Radon Panel
1. Don Francis: Radon Measurement and Mitigation
2. Brett Sherry: Radon
3. Scott Burns, PhD: Cataclysms on the Columbia: the Great Missoula Floods
5. Farm Bill 101- Rep. Earl Blumenauer
6. Connection Between the U.S. Farm Subsidy program and Health Related Expenditures.

The conference strives to promote a paradigm shift among professionals in health care, public health, planning and environmental services, to understand how their own practice affects and is affected by some of the Pacific Northwest’s most difficult environmental and health challenges. Our multidisciplinary approach will provide information about: current science and research; best practices to incorporate environmental health education in clinical and community settings; and best practices and promising innovations in the policy arena. 

Audience participants included: healthcare administrators, researchers, naturopathic and allopathic practitioners, public health practitioners, community organizers, non-profit program managers, and students.

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