The need for the "new health geography" in epidemiologic studies of environment and health
The need for the "new health geography" in epidemiologic studies of environment and health
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DOI：
10.1016/j.healthplace.2006.11.003
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发表时间：
2007-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Cutchin, Malcolm P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cutchin, Malcolm P.
过去十年中，社会和环境流行病学研究的增长为人们对环境与健康关系的新认识做出了重要贡献。虽然地理信息系统以及“社区”等概念的结合可能被视为社会流行病学向健康地理学靠拢的证据，但我认为这两个领域并没有很好地结合起来。健康地理学对环境和健康的研究有更多贡献，社会流行病学家对这些潜在贡献的关注可能有助于纠正这种失调。本文提出了一些关于健康和环境的地理观点，可以通过社会流行病学在地理和公共卫生之间建立有用的联系。为了说明这种潜力，我以一项正在进行的对德克萨斯州社区暴露于大型石化综合体的研究（以社会流行病学模式构建的调查）为例。我将地理学的几个观点和概念应用到案例研究中。文化生态学、话语物化、政治生态学和地域性被用来评估德克萨斯城的情况，并提出重要的理解类型，以加强对环境和健康的社会流行病学方法。最后，我讨论了融入这种地理思维和分析的社会流行病学的前景。 (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. 保留所有权利。
Growth during the past decade in what can be broadly referred to as social and environmental epidemiologic research has been an important contributor to an emerging understanding of environment and health relationships. While the incorporation of geographic information systems as well as concepts such as "neighborhoods" might be viewed as evidence of social epidemiology moving closer to health geography, I argue that the two fields are not well aligned. Health geography has much more to contribute to studies of environment and health, and attention by social epidemiologists to those potential contributions could help rectify this misalignment. This paper suggests a number of geographic perspectives on health and environment that could create useful connections between geography and public health, via social epidemiology. To illustrate this potential, I use an ongoing study of a Texas community exposed to a large petrochemical complex-an inquiry constructed in the mode of social epidemiology-as a case in point. I apply several perspectives and concepts from geography to the case study. Cultural ecology, discourse materialized, political ecology, and territoriality are used to assess the Texas City situation and suggest important types of understandings that can enhance the social epidemiology approach to environment and health. I conclude with a discussion of the prospects for a social epidemiology infused with this type of geographic thought and analysis. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.