Pediatric Environmental Health

Completely revised and expanded, the new 3rd edition is the comprehensive AAP guide to the identification, prevention, and treatment of pediatric environmental health problems.

From playground to classroom, at home and across town, environmental hazards are all around us – an unfortunate fact of modern life.  And no one is more vulnerable to the adverse health effects these hazards can cause than our children.  It’s no wonder that environmental hazards are among parents’ top health concerns for their children. Yet little time is spent training physicians and other caregivers to recognize, prevent, and treat ailments resulting from exposure to harmful substances and environments. 

 

This comprehensive guide puts critical children’s health information and answers to parents’ questions at your fingertips.  From asbestos to radiation, ultraviolet rays, pesticides, asthma, lead, tobacco, childcare and school environments – plus new chapters on global climate change, plasticizers, developmental disabilities, environmental disasters, and more – current information on an exhaustive range of environmental health issues is included.

 

The 3rd edition features 59 topic-based chapters including the addition of 18 new chapters.

 

Contents:

-  Background: Addressing Environmental Health in Primary Care

-  History and Growth of Pediatric Environmental Health

-  Children's Unique Vulnerabilities to Environmental Hazards

-  Individual Susceptibility to Environmental Toxicants

-  Taking an Environmental History and Giving Anticipatory Guidance

-  Medical Laboratory Testing of Body Fluids and Tissues

-  Environmental Measurements

 

Environments

-  Preconceptional and Prenatal Exposures

-  Built Environment

-  Child Care Settings

-  Schools

-  Waste Sites

-  Work Places

-  Environmental Health Considerations for Children in Developing Nations, and Implications for Immigrants and Adoptees

 

Food and Water

-  Breast Milk

-  Phytoestrogen and Contaminants in Infant Formula

-  Water

-  Food Safety

-  Herbs, Dietary Supplements and Other Remedies

 

Chemical and Physical Exposures

-  Air Pollutants, Indoor

-  Air Pollutants, Outdoor

-  Arsenic

-  Asbestos

-  Carbon Monoxide

-  Chromium, Manganese, and Nickel

-  Cold and Heat

-  Electric and Magnetic Fields

-  Endocrine Disrupters

-  Gasoline and its Additives

-  Ionizing Radiation (Excluding Radon)

-  Lead

-  Mercury

-  Nitrates and Nitrites in Water

-  Noise

-  Persistent Organic Pollutants - DDT, PCBs, PCDFs, and Dioxins

-  Persistent Toxic Substances

-  Pesticides

-  Plasticizers

-  Radon

-  Tobacco Use and Secondhand Tobacco Smoke Exposure

-  Ultraviolet Radiation

 

Special Topics

-  Arts and Crafts

-  Asthma

-  Birth Defects and Other Adverse Developmental Outcomes

-  Cancer

-  Chelation for "Heavy Metal" Toxicity

-  Chemical-Biological Terrorism

-  Developmental Disabilities

-  Drug (Methamphetamine) Laboratories

-  Emerging Technologies and Materials

-  Environmental Disasters

-  Environmental Equity

-  Ethical Issues

-  Global Climate Change

-  Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

-  Nontherapeutic Use of Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture

 

Public Health Aspects of Environmental Health

 

-  Precautionary Principle

-  Risk Assessment, Risk Management, and Risk Communication

-  Environmental Health Advocacy

 

Resources for Children's Environmental Health

Curricula for Environmental Education and Environmental Health Science Education in Primary and Secondary Schools

Ruth A. Etzel, MD, PhD, FAAP is an internationally recognized pediatrician, environmental epidemiologist, and preventive medicine specialist.  She performed the first study to document that children with secondhand exposure to tobacco smoke had measurable exposure to nicotine.  Her pioneering work led to nationwide efforts to reduce indoor exposure to tobacco, including the ban on smoking in US airliners.  She also produced the first research to show that exposure to toxigenic molds in the home could be dangerous to infants’ health.  She served on the AAP Committee on Environmental Health from 1986 to 1995 and chaired it from 1995 to 1999. From 2009-2012 she led the World Health Organization’s activities to protect children from environmental hazards.  She is the co-editor of the Textbook of Children’s Environmental Health.
 

Sophie J. Balk, MD, FAAP is a general pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY.  Her academic work focuses on educating clinicians about pediatric environmental health.  She is a past member and chairperson of the AAP Council on Environmental Health, and a past member of the AAP Section on Tobacco Control Executive Committee.  She has served as Associate Editor of the 4 editions of Pediatric Environmental Health. Dr. Balk has published and lectured on skin cancer prevention, tobacco issues, and other environmental health issues relevant to pediatric practice.