ABSTRACT
Environmental health encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect human health, such as radiation, toxic chemicals and other hazardous agents. It is often assumed that the assessment part is just a matter of scientific research, and the control part a matter of implementing standards which unambiguously follow from that research. But it is less commonly understood that environmental health also requires addressing questions of an ethical nature.
How can we determine the "acceptable" risk level for the general population or for certain groups? How should we deal with uneven distributions of risks and benefits? How do we communicate about risks with the stakeholders? This multidisciplinary collection brings together a number of leading researchers and scholars in order to generate discussion surrounding these key questions, and to bring the ethical implications of science and technology to the forefront of critical thought.
Providing a broad overview of the Ethics of Environmental Health, its philosophical foundations and practical applications, this book offers a significant contribution to ongoing discussions in sustainable development and will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of Environmental Health, urban studies and healthcare.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|48 pages
Insights from the discussion of related topics
chapter 1|14 pages
Global, regional and local ecological change
part II|38 pages
Principles
part III|50 pages
Decision making on environmental health problems
chapter 7|14 pages
The phenomenology of environmental health risk
part IV|43 pages
Ethics of radiological protection