Health
This section focuses on the many factors that influence our health—news and ideas that you may not find in the mainstream media. Here is a sample:
- Sustainability & Public Health – Unsustainable practices harm the environment, but they also make people sick!
- Endocrine Disruptors – Many petrochemicals, including those used in agriculture, disrupt the proper functioning of the endocrine system.
- Expanding Health Care Coverage without Increasing Cost – A ‘white paper’ from The Dartmouth Institute.
- Childhood asthma – a critical problem for the Lehigh Valley
- Breastfeeding Awareness
- Health Dangers of Teflon
Also see the Focus On… section for Food, with reports on Impacts of Sustainable and Industrial Agriculture on Human Health, campus dining services, and Healthy Food for Healthy Communities.
Social Research | Social Justice Conference
A unique and excellent addition to the Lehigh Valley’s offerings, the Social Research Social Justice Conference began in 2003 as a collaboration between faculty and students in the Department of Media and Communication at Muhlenberg College, with the goal to … more
50 Toxic Food Additives
50 Jawdroppingly Toxic Food Additives to Avoid There have been great advances in food preparation in the last century. These days, well over half of the foods that we can buy in a typical supermarket are pre packaged or prepared. … more
Exposure to Toxic & Endocrine Disruptor Chemicals
In 2007, more than 200 biologists, toxicologists, epidemiologists, nutrition researchers, and pediatricians from around the world met at Torshavn, Denmark for the International Conference on Fetal Programming and Developmental Toxicity. The conference was organized jointly with, and sponsored by, BCPT (the … more
Your Health Is the Result of Decisions Made by Others
There seems to be a renewed awareness and discussion of the intimate connections between your health and decisions made by others — in government and private business — about how to grow food, use of chemical pesticides, industrial products, and … more
Diesel Pollution in the Lehigh Valley
Many believe that school buses are the safest method of transportation for children to get to school, but is it the healthiest? Diesel pollution is becoming a more significant problem across the United States today and specifically, the Lehigh Valley … more
Sustainability & Public Health
Let’s look at sustainability in terms of how our practices affect human health, both immediately and over the long term. Whether we call them health problems or environmental problems, though, the prescription for corrective actions is almost identical. The health lens is … more
Childhood asthma is a serious problem in Lehigh Valley
For years the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has listed both Lehigh and Northampton counties among the worst in the U.S. for air quality, and one of the worst pollutants comes from Diesel engines: Both counties are among the worst 2 … more
Expanding Health Care Coverage without Increasing Cost
Expanding Coverage without Increasing Health Care Spending: Dartmouth Institute White Paper Recommends Course for the Obama Administration December 17, 2008 Lebanon, NH—The United States can extend coverage to the country’s uninsured without substantially increasing overall health care costs, according to a … more
Breastfeeding Awareness
(paraphrased from “The Dastardly Deeds of the AAP”, Mothering Magazine March-April 2004) The National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign is a three-year multimedia social marketing campaign whose purpose is to carry out the recommendations of the US Department of Health and Human … more