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3rd Annual Forum on Air Pollution and Public Health
Symposium Topic: Socio-Economic Factors and Air Pollution Health Effects
The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) held their third annual symposium on air pollution and public health at the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (2003 ISEE). The symposium is part of the USEPA’s Integrated Environmental Strategies (IES) program and was organized in collaboration with University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; P. Catholic University of Chile; Harvard School of Public Health, USA; UNEP Risø Centre, Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development, Denmark; and supported by the Health Effects Institute, USA; UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics (DTIE), France; and United States Geological Survey. This effort brought together researchers and policymakers from across the globe to discuss public policy motivations, current research results, and data gaps and future directions for studying the interaction of socioeconomic conditions and air pollution as determinants of population health. More
The USEPA’s IES Program supports the analysis and implementation of integrated strategies and measures to achieve public health, air pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation benefits in developing countries. These IES forums on air pollution and public health are designed to promote discussion, research and collaboration by bringing together researchers and policymakers to discuss public policy motivations, current research results, data gaps and future directions for promoting strategies to simultaneously achieve public health, economic and GHG reduction benefits. This event was the third annual symposium hosted by the EPA’s IES program in conjunction with ISEE. Please see the socioeconomic factors concept document for the background for this year's workshop, and for past workshop summaries, see First workshop (PDF 226 kb) and Second workshop (PDF 135 KB)
8:30 a.m.
Introductions
and meeting overview
Collin Green, National Renewable Energy Lab, USA
8:45
a.m.
Research on air pollution and
socio-economic conditions: status and future
Alfesio
Braga, University of Sao Paulo/University of Santo Amaro,
Brazil
Luis
Cifuentes, Catholic
University of Chile; Santiago, Chile
Marie O’Neill, Harvard School of Public Health, USA
Moderator: Desiree M. Narvaez, Philippines Department of Health; Manila Philippines
9:30 a.m.
Modeling contextually and heterogeneity in health: a multilevel
Modeling
approach
S.V. Subramanian, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
10:00 a.m.
Refreshment break
2nd Session:
Research on air pollution and socio-economic level
10:10 a.m.
Reporting of doctors’ diagnoses of respiratory
diseases:
influence of socioeconomic level and methodological implications for air
pollution studies (CESAR
- Central European Study of Air Pollution and Respiratory Health)
Tony
Fletcher, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
10:30
a.m.
Indoor
air pollution in India and its link with socio economic conditions
R
Uma, The
Energy and Resources Institute, India
10:50 a.m.
Methods for Identifying
Susceptible Populations
Joel Schwartz, Harvard School of Public Health, USA
11:10 a.m.
The
impact of socio-economic status on air pollution: Challenges for South Africa
Kuku
Voyi, University
of Pretoria School of Health Systems; South Africa
11:35 a.m.
Lunch Break
1:00 p.m.
Moderated discussions on co-operation
for developing new studies
1) Tord Kjellstrom,
Australian
National University:
Group 1 discussion
summary
2)
Doug Dockery,
Harvard School of Public Health, USA: Group 2 discussion summary
3) Achim Heinrich, GSF Institute for Epidemiology, Germany: Group
3
discussion summary
4) Lucas Neas, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Group 4 discussion summary
3:00 p.m. Coffee Break
4:10 p.m.
Reporting
of Outcomes of the above
group
sessions
Moderator:
Tony
Fletcher, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Co-moderator: Michelle Bell, Johns Hopkins University; Baltimore USA
4:30 p.m.
Air Impacts presentation
Jorge
Rogat, UNEP Risoe Centre (URC) Energy, Climate
and Sustainable Development, Denmark
4:45 p.m.
Wrap-up and Next Steps
Moderators: Alfesio Braga,
Luis Cifuentes, Collin Green, Marie O’Neill,
·
Workshop report, establish working group for collaboration
5:00 p.m.
Adjourn
While the opening session featured presentations from researchers on analytical methodologies and results, the break out session promoted discussions and explored opportunities for research co-operation to develop new studies and mechanisms for policy applications. It addressed the following issues and topics:
What geographical
areas would be useful to study and why? (e.g., very high pollution
exposures, strong SES gradient, potential to study interventions, such as fuel
substitution, large populations, etc.)
What methodologies
do we want to use? where are
improvements/advances needed? What
synergies between methods used in environmental and poverty studies can be exploited?
Which pollutant
sources and pollutants are most important? More useful to study
individual pollutant or source classes (e.g. vehicle emissions, indoor stoves,
etc.)
What are communities and policy-makers most interested in? how do we tie our research to these concerns? How do we connect the environmental and poverty agendas?
The report of the workshop will be available shortly at this website.
Don't forget to tell us about your work. And please contact Arize Nweke email, or by phone at 202 646-5272 for any questions.