Reclaiming Environmental Health as a Public Health Priority

Modern public health has its origins in environmental health, when John Snow famously took the handle off the Broad Street pump to end a cholera epidemic in mid nineteenth century London. Over a century and half later, the Pew Commission on Environmental Health re-affirmed the critical linkages between environmental pollution and disease, particularly in chronic diseases such as respiratory disease, cancer, birth defects, developmental disabilities, and neurological diseases. Approximately, one quarter of the deaths globally can be prevented through modifiable environmental factors, which are inextricably linked with social determinants of health. Moreover, Global Burden of Disease reports consistently find that air pollution is among the ten leading causes of death. Current estimates place air pollution mortality in the US at approximately 70,000 per year (reference). Mortality in Allegheny County Pennsylvania is estimated to be approximately 1,000 per year (Iyad’s reference).

An environmental health equity agenda recognizes the central importance of primary prevention to public health policy. The built environment can be designed in such a manner that not only limits pollution hazards but also creates more sustainable pathways to food, energy, climate, and water security. The Pittsburgh region is not unique in the environmental challenges and environmental opportunities it faces. Nor is it unique in the health disparities that exist due to race and social glass, though they are more evident here than in other cities. Consequently, this Platform has been created to help direct our collective knowledge towards healthier futures

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Why Pittsburgh?

The need for the Pittsburgh Platform originated from the recognition by the Heinz Endowments that the Pittsburgh region’s environmental health challenges have to be addressed through an equity and inclusion lens (http://www.p4pittsburgh.org/). Often these challenges are approached apart from each other, limiting the effectiveness of solutions and even exacerbating societal tensions around health, environmental improvement, and social justice. The motivation behind the Platform was that urban planning and design initiatives could be informed by projects that brought together these objectives in an intersectional manner. Further, the region could also benefit through the sharing of experiences from other cities confronting similar problems. In this regard, the Platform’s Steering Committee is not asserting that Pittsburgh has solved these problems. To the contrary, it is because Pittsburgh remains one of the most racially and economically divided cities in the United States that it needs to be the hub of transformative activities that achieve lasting impacts. The singular contribution of Pittsburgh to this broad mission is its place in the creative centering of collective talent around the environmental health equity theme. It is why this endeavor is called the Pittsburgh Platform even though its scope extends well beyond the region.