The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Begins	22 Apr 2009 - 6:00pm
Ends	22 Apr 2009 - 7:50pm
Location	72 Fifth Avenue, Room 713

ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH ISSUES IN THE COMMUNITY

Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy

Date/Time:  Wednesday, April 22, 6-7:50pm
Location: 72 Fifth Avenue, Room 713

 

Faculty: Warren Balinsky

This course teaches the fundamentals of epidemiology and environmentally induced illness in the community. We study a range of contemporary environmental health issues, including asthma, lead poisoning, Gulf War Syndrome, smoking, bioterrorism, Legionnaire's Disease, violence, Love Canal, and cancer. From an epidemiological perspective, we explore the social, political, and economic factors of environmental illness, emphasizing such concepts as population analysis, community diagnosis, causation and transmission of disease, and risk assessment. These standard epidemiological concepts are more contested and less precise when applied to suspected or known environmental sources of illness, and often, medical interventions to combat or prevent environmental health hazards occur only after the affected group and its advocates take political action.