Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 94, p. 3, 1991
Introduction. Second Annual Meeting of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology by John Goldsmith* Environmental exposures are a concern of every epidemiologist, and therefore there was some skepticism when a group of epidemiologists proposed that a new international scientific society for the study and analysis of studies of environmental epidemiology was needed. The papers presented at the Second International Meeting ofthe International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) illustrate that the need was real. The meeting, which had 280 registrants and was held in Berkeley, California, immediately after the 12th International Meeting ofthe International Epidemiological Association (IEA) in Los Angeles, had almost no overlap in topics covered or speakers, and, surprisingly, an overlap of only 20 attendees. The program and the papers submitted by contributors reflect a variety of environmental exposures of concern. A few examples suffice: Public concern about environmental exposures and symptom patterns is treated by several authors as a suitable subject for research; a variety of problems of study design and data management strategies are reported with emphasis on ecological studies; a broad range of exposures are subjected to scrutiny, ranging from lead and ozone exposures in countries *Epidemiology and Health Services Evaluation, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer Sheva, Israel.
not previously included in international evaluations of such exposures, to solvents, nonionizing radiation, coal combustion in Chinese houses and in Israeli power plants. Several papers in the program reported on the use of exposure biomarkers. The last session was a tutorial on new directions in biomarkers using mass spectroscopy for protein and DNA adducts, the detection of somatic mutations in red and white blood cells, and immunochemical means for detecting protein adducts. There was a roundtable discussion dealing with ways to overcome barriers to collaboration between epidemiologists and laboratory scientists. Two characteristics that distinguish environmental epidemiology from epidemiology in general are seen in this collection of reports. The first is inclusion of health end points of concern to the public for which pathological confirmation is not now possible. These are seen in some of the waste site studies. The second is the importance of exposure evaluation as seen, for example, in the update report on the leukemia cluster in children of workers at the Sellafield Nuclear Weapons Facility. Environmental Health Perspectives, over the past decade, has reported on several meetings devoted to environmental epidemiology (Volumes 42, 52, and 62) With this group of reports, and its breadth of topics and countries, the science of environmental epidemiology demonstrates its growing maturity.
Introduction. Second Annual Meeting of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology by John Goldsmith* Environmental exposures are a concern of every epidemiologist, and therefore there was some skepticism when a group of epidemiologists proposed that a new international scientific society for the study and analysis of studies of environmental epidemiology was needed. The papers presented at the Second International Meeting ofthe International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) illustrate that the need was real. The meeting, which had 280 registrants and was held in Berkeley, California, immediately after the 12th International Meeting ofthe International Epidemiological Association (IEA) in Los Angeles, had almost no overlap in topics covered or speakers, and, surprisingly, an overlap of only 20 attendees. The program and the papers submitted by contributors reflect a variety of environmental exposures of concern. A few examples suffice: Public concern about environmental exposures and symptom patterns is treated by several authors as a suitable subject for research; a variety of problems of study design and data management strategies are reported with emphasis on ecological studies; a broad range of exposures are subjected to scrutiny, ranging from lead and ozone exposures in countries *Epidemiology and Health Services Evaluation, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer Sheva, Israel.
not previously included in international evaluations of such exposures, to solvents, nonionizing radiation, coal combustion in Chinese houses and in Israeli power plants. Several papers in the program reported on the use of exposure biomarkers. The last session was a tutorial on new directions in biomarkers using mass spectroscopy for protein and DNA adducts, the detection of somatic mutations in red and white blood cells, and immunochemical means for detecting protein adducts. There was a roundtable discussion dealing with ways to overcome barriers to collaboration between epidemiologists and laboratory scientists. Two characteristics that distinguish environmental epidemiology from epidemiology in general are seen in this collection of reports. The first is inclusion of health end points of concern to the public for which pathological confirmation is not now possible. These are seen in some of the waste site studies. The second is the importance of exposure evaluation as seen, for example, in the update report on the leukemia cluster in children of workers at the Sellafield Nuclear Weapons Facility. Environmental Health Perspectives, over the past decade, has reported on several meetings devoted to environmental epidemiology (Volumes 42, 52, and 62) With this group of reports, and its breadth of topics and countries, the science of environmental epidemiology demonstrates its growing maturity.
