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'Northern Exposures' is an important and thought-provoking book that shows how the labor movement has embraced environmental protection and is beginning to create a new and more sustainable vision for the future. Dave Bennett's knowledge and commitment shine through. He is, by turns, the skeptical philosopher sifting the evidence and the passionate partisan arguing for the rights of the people. It makes for a rich and exhilarating mixture.-Nigel Crisp, Permanent Secretary, U.K. Department of Health, and Chief Executive, National Health Service (2000-2006), Author, Turning the World Upside Down: The Search for Global Health in the 21st Century (Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2010) Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. THE CANADIAN LABOR MOVEMENT Health and Safety at the Canadian Labour Congress Chapter 1. The Right to Know about Chemical Hazards in Canada, 1982-2006 The Story of the Convergence Chapter 2. Labour and the Environment at the Canadian Labour Congress—The Story of the Convergence PART II. PREVENTION VERSUS CONTROL: EARLY MOVES Chapter 3. Occupational Health: A Discipline Out of Focus Chapter 4. Pesticide Reduction: A Case Study from Canada PART III: POLLUTION PREVENTION IN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT Chapter 5. The Canadian Labour Congress’ Pollution Prevention Strategy Chapter 6. Prevention and Transition PART IV: CANCER PREVENTION Chapter 7. Cancer Battles and the Sleep of Reason: Review Books About Cancer: Pragmatic Purpose, Profound Analysis: Reviews Chapter 8. The Politics of Cancer Revisited: Review Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War: Review Chapter 9. The Secret History of the War on Cancer: Review PART V: FROM ENVIRONMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY Sustainability: Materials Policy Chapter 10. Industrial Materials: A Guidebook for the Future: Review The Ecology of Commerce Chapter 11. ‘Natural Capitalism’s’ Bold Theory: Review PART VI: INTERNATIONAL REGIMES IN HEALTH, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENT Chapter 12. Beware ISO Chapter 13.ISO and the WTO: A Report to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions’ Working Party on Health, Safety, and Environment Chapter 14. Health and Safety Management Systems: Liability or Asset? Index

The Toxic Schoolhouse is a collection of articles on chemical hazards endangering students, teachers, and staff in the education system of the United States and Canada. Some of the articles were originally published in a special issue of New Solutions: A Journal of Occupational and Environmental Policy , but all have been updated and several new articles have been added. The book is organized in three sections. The first describes problems ranging from the failures of coordination, monitoring, and siting of school buildings to the hazards of exposure to toxic substances, including lead and PCBs. The second section captures the voices of activists seeking change and describes community and union organizing efforts to improve school conditions. The third section covers policy \"solutions.\" The authors include academics, union staff and rank-and-file activists, parent organization leaders, and public health professionals. Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I ~ The Problem Chapter 1. Who’s in Charge of Children’s Environmental Health at School? Jerome Paulson and Claire Barnett Chapter 2. Who’s Sick at School: Linking Poor School Conditions and Health Disparities for Boston’s Children Tolle Graham, Jean Zotter, and Marlene Camacho June 2012 Update on Who’s Sick at School Report Tolle Graham, Jean Zotter, and Marlene Camacho Chapter 3. Failing Our Children: Lead in U.S. School Drinking Water Yanna Lambrinidou, Simoni Triantafyllidou, and Marc Edwards Chapter 4. PCBs in School—Persistent Chemicals, Persistent Problems Robert F. Herrick Update on PCBs in School Robert F. Herrick Chapter 5. Healthy School Siting and Planning Policies: Linking Public Health, Education, and the Environment Alison K. Cohen PART II ~ Organizing for Change Chapter 6. “Serving Two Masters”—An Interview with School Teacher and Union Organizer Debra Askwith Madeleine Kangsen Scammell and Ema Rodrigues Chapter 7. “We Can’t Give Up, It’s Too Important”—Health and Safety Stories from Canadian and U.S. Schools Dorothy Wigmore Chapter 8. New Jersey’s Union-Centered Healthy Schools Work Eileen Senn Chapter 9. Negotiating Indoor Air—Case Report on Negotiation of Teachers’ Union, School Board on Air Contaminants Sarah Gibson and Charles Levenstein Chapter 10. School Custodians and Green Cleaners:Labor-Environment Coalitions and Toxics Reduction Laura Senier, Brian Mayer, Phil Brown, and Rachel Morello-Frosch PART III ~ Advances in Policy Chapter 11. Integrated Pest Management Policies in America’s Schools: Is Federal Legislation Needed? Andrea Kidd Taylor, Kyle Esdaille, and Jennifer Ames Chapter 12. Reducing Asthma Triggers in Schools: Recommendations for Effective Policies, Regulations, and Legislation Joan N. Parker Chapter 13. Building the New Schoolhouse: The Massachusetts School Building Authority Jennifer Ames and Charles Levenstein Contributors Index

The evidence and method are limited for the associations between mortality and temperature variability (TV) within or between days. We developed a novel method to calculate TV and investigated TV-mortality associations using a large multicountry data set. We collected daily data for temperature and mortality from 372 locations in 12 countries/regions (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Moldova, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We calculated TV from the standard deviation of the minimum and maximum temperatures during the exposure days. Two-stage analyses were used to assess the relationship between TV and mortality. In the first stage, a Poisson regression model allowing over-dispersion was used to estimate the community-specific TV-mortality relationship, after controlling for potential confounders. In the second stage, a meta-analysis was used to pool the effect estimates within each country. There was a significant association between TV and mortality in all countries, even after controlling for the effects of daily mean temperature. In stratified analyses, TV was still significantly associated with mortality in cold, hot, and moderate seasons. Mortality risks related to TV were higher in hot areas than in cold areas when using short TV exposures (0-1 days), whereas TV-related mortality risks were higher in moderate areas than in cold and hot areas when using longer TV exposures (0-7 days). The results indicate that more attention should be paid to unstable weather conditions in order to protect health. These findings may have implications for developing public health policies to manage health risks of climate change. Guo Y, Gasparrini A, Armstrong BG, Tawatsupa B, Tobias A, Lavigne E, Coelho MS, Pan X, Kim H, Hashizume M, Honda Y, Guo YL, Wu CF, Zanobetti A, Schwartz JD, Bell ML, Overcenco A, Punnasiri K, Li S, Tian L, Saldiva P, Williams G, Tong S. 2016. Temperature variability and mortality: a multi-country study. Environ Health Perspect 124:1554-1559; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP149.

Background: Indigenous American communities face disproportionate health burdens and environmental health risks compared with the average North American population. These health impacts are issues of both environmental and reproductive justice. Objectives: In this commentary, we review five indigenous communities in various stages of environmental health research and discuss the intersection of environmental health and reproductive justice issues in these communities as well as the limitations of legal recourse. Discussion: The health disparities impacting life expectancy and reproductive capabilities in indigenous communities are due to a combination of social, economic, and environmental factors. The system of federal environmental and Indian law is insufficient to protect indigenous communities from environmental contamination. Many communities are interested in developing appropriate research partnerships in order to discern the full impact of environmental contamination and prevent further damage. Conclusions: Continued research involving collaborative partnerships among scientific researchers, community members, and health care providers is needed to determine the impacts of this contamination and to develop approaches for remediation and policy interventions.

Antibiotic residues are widely recognized as major pollutants in the aquatic environment on a global scale. As a significant class of pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), antibiotics are extensively consumed worldwide. The primary sources of these residues include hospitals, municipal sewage, household disposal, and manures from animal husbandry. These residues are frequently detected in surface and drinking waters, sewage effluents, soils, sediments, and various plant species in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Europe, the USA, Canada, and India. Antibiotics are used medicinally in both humans and animals, with a substantial portion excreted into the environment as metabolites in feces and urine. With the advancement of sensitive and quantitative analytical techniques, antibiotics are consistently reported in environmental matrices at concentrations ranging from nanograms per liter (ng/L) to milligrams per liter (mg/L). Agricultural soils, in particular, serve as a significant reservoir for antibiotic residues due to their strong particle adsorption capacities. Plants grown in soils irrigated with PhAC-contaminated water can uptake and accumulate these pharmaceuticals in various tissues, such as roots, leaves, and fruits, raising serious concerns regarding their consumption by humans and animals. There is an increasing need for research to understand the potential human health risks associated with the accumulation of antibiotics in the food chain. The present reviews aims to shed light on the rising environmental pharmaceutical contamination concerns, their sources in the environment, and the potential health risks as well as remediation effort. To discuss the main knowledge gaps and the future research that should be prioritized to achieve the risk assessment. We examined and summarized the available data and information on the antibiotic resistance associated with antibiotic residues in the environment. As studies have indicated that vegetables can absorb, transport, and accumulate antibiotics in edible parts when irrigated with wastewater that is either inadequately treated or untreated. These residues and their metabolites can enter the food chain, with their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity contributing to drug resistance and adverse health effects in living organisms.

Background A population-based approach to healthcare goes beyond the traditional biomedical model and addresses the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration in promoting health of communities. By establishing partnerships across primary care (PC) and public health (PH) sectors in particular, healthcare organizations can address local health needs of populations and improve health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to map a series of interventions from the empirical literature that facilitate PC-PH collaboration and develop a resource for healthcare organizations to self-evaluate their clinical practices and identify opportunities for collaboration with PH. Methods A scoping review was designed and studies from relevant peer-reviewed literature and reports between 1990 and 2017 were included if they met the following criteria: empirical study methodology (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), based in US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia or New Zealand, describing an intervention involving PC-PH collaboration, and reporting on structures, processes, outcomes or markers of a PC-PH collaboration intervention. Results Out of 2962 reviewed articles, 45 studies with interventions leading to collaboration were classified into the following four synergy groups developed by Lasker’s Committee on Medicine and Public Health: Coordinating healthcare services ( n  = 13); Applying a population perspective to clinical practice ( n  = 21); Identifying and addressing community health problems ( n  = 19), and Strengthening health promotion and health protection ( n  = 21). Furthermore, select empirical examples of interventions and their key features were highlighted to illustrate various approaches to implementing collaboration interventions in the field. Conclusions The findings of our review can be utilized by a range of organizations in healthcare settings across the included countries. Furthermore, we developed a self-evaluation tool that can serve as a resource for clinical practices to identify opportunities for cross-sectoral collaboration and develop a range of interventions to address unmet health needs in communities; however, the generalizability of the findings depends on the evaluations conducted in individual studies in our review. From a health equity perspective, our findings also highlight interventions from the empirical literature that address inequities in care by targeting underserved, high-risk populations groups. Further research is needed to develop outcome measures for successful collaboration and determine which interventions are sustainable in the long term.