Individuals and communities today face many health problems that can be associated with our environment, including waste, unhealthy buildings, suburban sprawl, air pollution, water pollution, and environmentally related stress. In 1998, the Institute of Medicine created the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine as a venue for interested parties from the academic, industrial, consumer, and federal research perspectives to meet and discuss sensitive and difficult issues of mutual interest in a neutral setting. The purpose is to foster discussion among people in different sectors and institutions that will illuminate issues, not resolve them.
At our first workshop, Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment: A New Vision for the 21st Century, the participants and Roundtable members explored the need for a broader perspective of environmental health--one that incorporates the natural, the built, and the social environments. This workshop discussed many of the challenges that members of the environmental health community are facing and strength the need for engaging nontraditional partnerships in addressing these issues.
As a follow-up to this workshop, the Roundtable has begun to sponsor regional workshops to understand the complex issues in various regions in the United States. The demographics of United States cities are changing, more people are moving to urban environments, and the limits of the cities are continuing to expand. The expansion brings with it a number of problems, including urban sprawl, air pollution, housing, and social issues. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of Houston, a city that has come to represent cultural and ethnic diversity. As Houston has grown, it has encountered a number of environmental health issues. The nation's highest ozone concentrations and toxic air pollutants are found in Houston. Further, the city is struggling with health of water contamination and mold because of its close proximity to a number of rivers.
This meeting provided an opportunity for members of the Roundtable to understand environmental health in various regions in the United States and also stimulated dialog about environmental health issues in Houston among local business leaders, architects, urban planners, engineers, public health scientists, environmental scientists, health care providers, social scientists, clergy, educators, and other community leaders.