Read our interview with Congress key speaker, Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H. He is the Director National Center for Environmental Health / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He discusses cross-sector initiatives, his work at the CDC and how he came to collaborate with Congress fellow speaker, Richard Louv.
Q. What is your organization’s focus at the moment (as in NCEH/ATSDR)?
A. The National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry together are responsible for the Environmental Health portfolio at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NCEH/ATSDR works to maintain and improve the health of the American people by promoting a healthy environment and by preventing premature death and avoidable illness and disability caused by toxic substances and other environmental hazards.
Q. Do you have any examples of cross sector work/collaboration in action that you can share?
A. NCEH/ATSDR collaborates actively with other organizations and agencies, reflecting our commitment to “Health in All Policies” and our recognition that the determinants of health lie upstream from the health sector. Recent examples include partnerships with the American Planning Association to promote health community design principles, with the National Center for Healthy Housing to train public officials in principles of healthy housing, with the National Building Museum to educate the public about health benefits of “green communities,” with the U.S. Department of Transportation to promote the construction of sidewalks and bicycle paths, and with the Children and Nature Network to promote research on the health benefits of nature contact.
Q. You moved from an academic career to the public sector - what prompted that change?
A. While I loved the teaching, research, and writing that were principal parts of academic life, I feel a deep commitment to public service. I believe that public health agencies can make key contributions toward promoting public health and well-being. Working in the public sector offers opportunities to make a real difference.
Q. What brought about your work with Richard Louv? And will this progress further in the future?
A. A decade ago I realized that much of the focus of the field of Environmental Health was on controlling the “negatives”-toxins, air pollutants, radiation, and so on. Of course it is essential to protect the public from such exposures, but the complementary approach - maximizing access to health-promoting environments - is relatively overlooked. I reviewed the then-available evidence on health benefits of nature contact, in four domains - viewing nature, contact with plants, contact with animals, and going into the wilderness - and concluded that the evidence, while incomplete, was highly suggestive of a range of benefits. I published this work in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2001. To my great good fortune, this brought me into contact with thought leaders such as E.O. Wilson at Harvard, Steve Kellert at Yale, Rachel and Steven Kaplan at the University of Michigan, and of course Richard Louv, who has done more than anybody to popularize the notion that children need contact with nature.
Q. What is your favourite outdoor place and why?
A. I live in Georgia, a diverse state that spans from coastal plain along the Atlantic Ocean to mountains in the north. At the very northern edge of the state, where the Appalachian Mountain chain reaches its southern extent, is a wilderness area called the Cohutta Wilderness. (The name derives from a Cherokee Indian term for “roof supported by poles,” a reference to the appearance of the mountain summit.) It is traversed by small rivers, and miles of trails. There’s nothing I like better than hiking and camping there, especially in the spring when wild flowers -too beautiful for words - are blooming.
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