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Forum on Biodiversity and Human Health Convenes on September 14

	Professor Durland Fish, Director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Center for EcoEpidemiology, is co-organizer of the September 14 forum that stresses the importance of the connection of biodiversity and human health.

The Yale Institute for Biospeheric Studies Center for EcoEpidemiology (YIBSCEE) is co-sponsoring a forum on Biodiversity and Human Health with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office for Research and Development on September 14 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Co-organized by Durland Fish, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and Montira Pongsiri, M.P.H. ’98, Ph.D., environmental health scientist at the EPA, the forum will consist of presentations on themes related to biodiversity and human health such as epidemiology and vector ecology; climate change, biodiversity, and health; wildlife trade and the spread of exotics and disease; pharmacopeia; the role of biodiversity in natural catastrophes; valuation of biodiversity for public health; and applications of research to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. These presentations will be part of an outreach effort to scientists and decision-makers to stress the importance of the connection between biodiversity and human health and to discuss the state of the science.

The event will bring together experts from a variety of disciplines, academia, nongovernmental organizations, and management agencies from the United States and abroad to share expertise and information and to consider new approaches to characterize the relationship between biodiversity and human health.

“The communication gap between ecologists and epidemiologists is far worse in the US than in other countries,” explains Professor Fish, “a serious forum of this type is long overdue.”

Merging the boundaries between the environmental and medical sciences is the primary mission of YIBSCEE, which was founded by Professor Fish in 2005. He hopes this event will initiate collaboration and research among the participants in an extremely important area that influences decisions on both biodiversity and human health.

Details on the forum and the registration form can be found at http://www.scgcorp.com/biodiversity1/index.asp. The forum will also be webcasted live at http://www.scgcorp.com/biodiversity1/webcast.asp and then made permanently available on the YIBSCEE website http://www.yale.edu/yibs/research/CEE.html.