Sickened by our surroundings

Elizabeth O’Brien with her youngest son, Harrison. This is the cover of a book, which will be available at her talk, in which she describes the LEAD group’s campaign.

Activist and founder of the Lead Education and Abatement Design (LEAD) Group, Elizabeth O’Brien, will discuss the role of non-government organisations in environmental health advocacy at Macquarie University on 27 October.

O’Brien’s talk, intriguingly titled “Green Lead”: Oxymoron or Future Vision? will draw on her experiences during her long struggle to prevent children like her own being exposed to lead.

Environmental health is a growing area of concern and study, as people are increasingly worried about the impact of factory and vehicle pollution on the quality of the water they drink and the air they breathe. More people are killed in workplace accidents than on the roads in Australia. Even in our homes we are under threat from hazards such as lead-based paint in old houses. What can we do about it?

Lindie Clark, Lecturer in the Department of Health and Chiropractic, has organised the forthcoming talk as part of the Macquarie Health Studies Public Lecture series. Their purpose, she says, is to show that Macquarie has a role in the field of public health, and contains people with “broad and deep” expertise such as geographers, sociologists and anthropologists, who can provide insights into improving it. Too often, she says, health is seen merely as a medical problem.

"We have close links with the North Sydney Area Health Service that runs the hospitals and health facilities in our area,” Clark says. “And we can learn from the community.”

Lead in the home

Elizabeth O’Brien’s child was discovered to have dangerously elevated lead levels. This is particularly worrying when a brain is still developing. O’Brien became interested in how you mobilise the community and the government around such issues.

“Her challenge was that there is a very big and powerful lead industry in Australia, and it’s good at deflecting concerns about environmental health,” says Clark. “But lead is also a really emotive issue. It’s about kids. Over 10 to 15 years, Elizabeth has raised the profile of the threat of lead to children.”

This has resulted in greater awareness of risks as well as policy changes.

Courses at Macquarie

Professor Peter Curson, Head of the Health Studies program at Macquarie, is interested in other growing risks to health of large-scale urban living. A range of environmental and health issues are examined in a second year unit Contemporary Health Issues, as well as in a third year unit in human geography on Population, Health and the Environment. Macquarie also offers an Environmental Health unit in the Graduate School of the Environment.

In addition, some units in the Masters of Ageing and Health program consider environmental health issues. Curson also has plans to introduce a new Masters by coursework degree in Urban Health. 

Elizabeth O’Brien’s talk will take place on Thursday 27 October from 1-2pm in Building E7B, Room T2. For further information, contact Lindie Clark at lclark@els.mq.edu.au or Professor Peter Curson at pcurson@els.mq.edu.au

The Department of Health and Chiropractic website is at www.chiro.mq.edu.au

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