Event Description
How do definitions of "environment" and "exposure" vary across disciplines and across regulatory arenas? This workshop aims to bridge disciplinary divides to better understand how these terms are used, by whom, and to what effect.
Concerns about environmental health are rising. Policymakers, scientists and the public have grown increasingly concerned about adverse health effects in the wake of national and international catastrophes such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the cumulative effects of long-term infrastructure projects such as the Keystone Pipeline project. In April 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel released a landmark report, “Reducing Environmental Risk: What We Can Do Now.” This report suggested that environmental contributions to our nation’s cancer burden have been grossly underestimated, and urged more attention to exploring the impact of industrial, occupational, agricultural and military activities on community environmental health. Yet the ways scientists, social scientists and policymakers conceptualize the terms "environment" or "exposure" vary across disciplines and across regulatory arenas.
This workshop aims to bridge these disciplinary divides to better understand how the terms "environment" and "exposure" are used, by whom, and to what effect. Each session will have 3-4 speakers and a facilitator.
The workshop is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) AWARD # 1133304.
Presented by Drexel's Center for Science, Technology and Society, and the Chemical
Heritage Foundation. |
