Category: Ecology and Environment
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How public health talks about uranium mining – then and now
David Thomas – Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin. Last week in the Medical Journal of Australia, Rosalie Schultz from the PHAA Environment and Ecology Special Interest Group examined a government report into increased cancers and stillbirths near the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory. The mine…
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Three things you should know about mosquitoes
Shüné Oliver and Jaishree Raman For thousands of years malaria was a mysterious illness affecting people across the globe. Even the name of the disease, ‘malaria’, derived from two Italian words meaning ‘bad air’, highlights the confusion around the transmission of this disease. It was only following the discovery…
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“Gain of Function”: a poorly understood element of the Anthropocene
Colin D Butler When I proposed a short essay on “gain of function” (GoF) and its relevance to the Anthropocene (the human-dominated geological era) the theory that COVID-19 could have originated from a laboratory accident (or, less likely, was deliberately released) was still largely dismissed as a “conspiracy”. In recent weeks that…
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Urban heat islands: Darwin as a case study in climate change adaptation
Public Health Association Australia This Saturday, 5 June, is World Environment Day. Reimagine. Recreate. Restore. Together, these form the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, a day when the UN seeks to focus the attention of governments, investors, businesses and communities on the increasingly urgent need to restore the…
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How well do the future leaders in Western Australia #ThinkPublicHealth?
Kelly Kennington, Hannah Pierce, and Elizabeth Connor The WA election is now days away. Some people, including the WA Opposition Leader, have already accepted the current Government will easily win on Saturday. But we shouldn’t count the votes before they’ve been cast – and we shouldn’t head to the polls…
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Australian-first study reveals the health risks of building child care centres too close to car parks
The following article is based on an original article published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, authored by Harrison Birch, Clare Walter, Louis Irving, Shymali C. Dharmage and Natasha Smallwood. Background There is increasing evidence internationally and in Australia linking a higher risk of asthma and…
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Climate change: what actions can we take as health professionals?
Public Health Association of Australia In a message to health professionals, the World Health Organization says ‘climate change will be the defining issue for health systems in the 21st century, interacting with all of the social determinants of health.’ People working in public health have already begun witnessing the impacts…
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Nuclear weapons – always inhumane and unacceptable, now illegal
Tilman Ruff On Saturday 24 October, the number of nations ratifying the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) reached the milestone of 50. This means that 90 days later, on 22 January 2021, the treaty will enter into legal force, becoming international law and binding on…