ABSTRACT
The focus of much environmental health science is to identify and quantify associations
between potentially toxic exposures and disease outcomes. Consistent with a medical
model, the introduction of biomarkers has moved the field forward by validating the degree
of individual exposure and improving the precision of effect size estimates. This, in turn,
has lead to increased technological and programmatic responses to the reduction of
environmental pollution, including some positive changes in public health policy. However,
little attention has been paid by environmental health scientists to the social conditions
underlying (and often determining) the distribution of such toxic exposures, and even less
attention to the processes whereby some social conditions may alter susceptibility to the
toxicants, or vice versa. This chapter is divided into two sections, each addressing a set of
methodologic issues raised by the social-ecological perspective in environmental science.
