September 7, 2000
Environmental health issues come front and center at town meeting
Key environmental health concerns for Washington will be aired at a town meeting Sept. 29 and 30 in Seattle. Topics to be discussed will include links between childhood asthma and air pollution, environmental justice, and health effects of exposures to pesticides and other toxic chemicals. The public event is free and will begin at 4 p.m. Friday the 29th and 8:30 a.m. Saturday the 30th at Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
The town meeting, titled “Voices for Healthy Environments, Healthy Communities,” will give community members a chance to air concerns about environmental conditions that affect human health. Community activists, research scientists and environment and health officials will share perspectives on a variety of environmental health issues. Dr. Kenneth Olden, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), will attend the town meeting to listen and gather information that will help shape the direction of national environmental health research.
The town meeting is hosted by the University of Washington and sponsored by the NIEHS. NIEHS is holding such meetings nationwide to encourage members of the community to communite environmental health concerns directly to scientists.
“We need to make our science responsive to the American people,” said Olden, who will tour areas where local citizens have environmental concerns, and will attend the town meeting. “I don?t know how we find out what the American people want without going out and talking to them.”
“Dr. Olden is highly committed to responding to the concerns of the nation regarding environmental health threats,” said Dr. David Eaton, director of the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health, a professor of environmental health and associate dean for research in the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine. “This town meeting is an opportunity for concerned citizens in the Pacific Northwest to influence the national research agenda on environmental health issues.”
The program will include an open microphone session, visual displays and presentations by community groups, and workshops. Workshop topics will include asthma and air pollution, environmental justice, and health risks associated with exposures to pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.
Washington State Sen. Rosa Franklin will present an address Saturday morning, Sept. 30. Lupe Gamboa, Washington state regional director of the United Farm Workers of America, will speak at lunch Saturday, Sept. 30. Gamboa has worked for the betterment of farm workers since his first meeting with the late labor leader Cesar Chavez in the late 1960s.
In addition to meeting with research scientists, participants will also have an opportunity to form alliances with other groups with similar goals. As a result of a NIEHS town meeting in Cincinnati, scientists and community members joined forces to obtain nearly $900,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a two-year project to reduce lead exposures.
The Seattle town meeting is being organized by the University of Washington Department of Environmental Health and the UW/NIEHS Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health in partnership with several community groups, including El Centro de la Raza, the Minority Executive Directors Coalition, and Sea Mar Community Health Centers.
For more information about the forum, contact Naomi Stenberg at (206) 616-2643 or naomis@u.washington.edu. More information is also available on the town meeting website http://depts.washington.edu/townmeet/.
