Looking Ahead to Maryland 2050: Living in Our Environment

Abstracts

Panel II:  Maryland in a Changing World

Defining the Total Environment:  Completing the Continuum for Environmental Health

Betty Dabney, Research Associate Professor, Maryland Institute of Applied Environmental Health)

Abstract
Maryland has some of the dirtiest air in the U.S., with some of the highest estimated risks for both cancer and respiratory diseases as a result of exposure to air pollutants.  Similarly, our surface and ground water have polluted areas.  On the environmental side, the Chesapeake Bay is steadily declining in biota and economic productivity, to the point where its very future is in question.

When most people think of “The Environment”, they are usually referring to the chemicals in the air, water, soil, and food.  These are certainly important, and are the subject of most federal and state environmental regulations.  But “The Environment” is really much more encompassing than these:  it is the totality of all the risk factors we encounter in the course of living.  A complete definition of “The Total Environment” would need to include information on our economic, family, psychological, social, demographic, urban, rural, typological, and esthetic environment, etc., for all of these factors interact to determine the state of health for an individual and for a population.

There is a critical need in environmental health to find a way to quantify all of these disparate kinds of information, to relate them to each other, and to translate this research into action.  Through strategic partnerships, this is what we will do in the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health.  We will create an Information Technology infrastructure on the web, with built-in tools for analysis, reporting, and visualization of spatial and temporal data for many of these factors.  This will provide a means for filling in the gaps between the environment and health outcomes, as well as a means of determining the relative contribution of each of these factors to the health of humans and the environment.

In so doing, we will be developing tools for policy makers, businesses, government agencies, scientists, and the general public to understand where the greatest problems are, what contributes to them, and where to allocate limited resources to provide the greatest benefit.  In the final analysis, these should be the ultimate goals of environmental health.

Speaker information
Dr. Betty Dabney is Research Associate Professor at the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. She has over thirty years of post-doctoral experience in environmental health, informatics and project management. Prior to her position at the University of Maryland, she was Senior Environmental Health Researcher for the Maryland Department of the Environment. She earned her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin.