Conference and Call for Abstracts

["Scott Sudweeks" <ssudweek@dhhs.state.nh.us>]

I thought that this conference might be of interest to members of the
brownfields group.



Scott Sudweeks
NH Department of Health and Human Services
Concord, NH
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Hunter College Center for Occupational and Environmental Health,
New York City Departments of Health, Environmental Protection and City
Planning and Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the
Environment

present:

Meeting the Urban Health Challenge:
A Joint Public Health and Urban Planning Agenda
A Two-Day Conference on the Nexus Between Public Health and Urban Planning
September 18 & 19, 1998, New York City

CONFERENCE AND CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Conference Description:
The disciplines of public health and urban planning emerged around the need
to understand and prevent urban outbreaks of infectious disease.
Interventions that focused on overcrowding, sanitation and  vector
identification effectively controlled illnesses such as cholera and typhus,
allowing the disciplines to develop along divergent paths. Today there is
little professional or academic overlap between the fields of public health
and urban planning.

But the health, environmental and development problems facing urban
residents often cannot adequately be assessed or addressed through
traditional approaches. Modern public health practitioners need to
understand how building regulations, land-use limitations, zoning and other
urban planning strategies affect public health. This appreciation is
important in combating health problems related to conditions of housing and
proximity to polluters. Urban planners need similarly to understand the
basis of public health decision-making. The fundamental assumptions behind
zoning -- the most basic city planning tool that separates incompatible
land uses to protect  public health -- may no longer reflect what is known
today about sensitive populations, chemical hazards and risks from both
low-level and cumulative exposures.

Meeting the urban health challenge depends on reuniting public health and
urban planning in the academy, in the professional arena, in community
development, and in government. The goal of the conference is to establish
a dialogue between public health and urban planning. The conference will
explore and create links between the disciplines that will help
practitioners make more appropriate policy decisions, enable universities
to better educate professionals, and provide community members with greater
opportunities for participation in health and planning decision-making.
Papers Topics:

On the first day of the conference, papers will be presented on the nexus
of public health, urban planning and the urban environment. We invite
investigators, practitioners and community members to submit abstracts.
Conference organizers plan to publish accepted papers in conference
proceedings and in special issues of professional journals. Proceedings
will include copies of oral presentations, and papers submitted for
publication, but not for presentation. Submissions for both oral
presentations and publications will be peer reviewed.

To encourage the greatest possible creativity and range of ideas, abstracts
will be accepted on topics related, but not limited to, the following
sessions:

1.   Social and equity issues related to both urban health and planning;

2.   Relationships between existing and planned transportation systems
and public health;

3.   Tools and approaches for understanding and assessing cumulative
impacts of urban environmental exposures;

4.   Community roles in combining and integrating planning and health
promotion;

5.   Place-based approaches to planning and environmental protection.

Content:
We are interested in abstracts that describe, explore and analyze problems
of urban life as they relate to planning, environment and health. We invite
abstracts that offer case studies in inter-disciplinary, cross-agency or
regional approaches that address or explore key urban health and planning
concerns. Analyses that describe and critique the interactions among
health, environment, social, land use and economic development issues are
encouraged. Papers could analyze the effectiveness of policies, structures,
agencies, regulatory frameworks, or other systems in integrating  urban
planning, environmental and health concerns. Authors are encouraged to
consider what changes are necessary to improve the situation or alleviate
the problem and what/who are the institutions, actors and strategies that
can bring about such changes.

Submissions:
Abstracts are short descriptions of the content of papers and presentations
that include identification of the topic/problem, experience/findings and
recommendations. Submissions must fit one 8.5 by 11 inch page with a font
not smaller than 12 characters per inch. Submissions must follow this
format: (1) Title, (2) Author(s) (first and last name, with degrees), (3)
Affiliation(s), (4) Address, telephone, fax and e-mail,  (5) Abstract, (6)
Specify format:  oral presentation with publication, or publication only.

Deadlines:
Deadline for submission: May 1, 1998
Notification of acceptance:May 29, 1998
Submission of full paper:     July 17, 1998
Conference:              September 18 & 19, 1998

Submissions must be in electronic format by e-mail, sent by mail, on a
diskette, in a format readable by PC-compatible  word processing programs.
Plain paper submissions by mail or fax will not be considered.

Mail submissions to:

        Hunter College COEH
               Conference Abstracts
               425 E. 25th Street, Box 621
               New York, NY 10010

Or e-mail submissions to: dkass@hunter.cuny.edu.
For additional information, please call Sarah Perl, MPH at (212) 481-8790.