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International research spotlight on USC at ISEE conference
August 22, 2012
Conference organizers for the 24th Annual International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Conference report that 800 epidemiology researchers from more than 60 countries will be represented at the Aug. 26 – 30 event.
Registration continues for the conference, to be held at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. Registration is available through the University of South Carolina’s Continuing Education and Conferences.
Visit http://saeu.sc.edu/reg/isee2012/Registration/index.php for registration information and check out
isee2012.com for a complete listing of events, symposia, oral talks and poster sessions.
USC and the Arnold School of Public Health will host the event, whose theme, Environmental Health across Land, Air and Sea, will be woven throughout presentations, scientific poster sessions and discussions at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
USC President Harris Pastides and U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn, who represents South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, will speak at the opening session of the conference on Monday, Aug. 27. Pastides is an environmental epidemiologist and ISEE member.
Held last year in Barcelona, Spain, and in previous years in places like Seoul and Paris, the conference puts USC and the Arnold School – as well as the City of Columbia – in an international research spotlight.
“We are attracting the world’s leading environmental academicians and researchers, as well as leaders from the World Health Organization, US Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at NIH,” said Dr. Jim Burch, associate professor of epidemiology and chair of the 2012 conference host committee.
“This conference could be considered the Olympics of environmental epidemiology,” said Burch, noting that planning began in 2006. Around 850 abstracts have been accepted through peer-review by the Scientific Program Committee, and will be presented at the meeting and published in the electronic conference proceedings in the journal, Epidemiology.
Dr. Tom Chandler, dean of the Arnold School and former chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, said that having the ISEE Conference in Columbia brings special distinction to USC and to the Arnold School of Public Health in the environmental sciences arena.
“This international conference will bring worldwide attention to the study of environmental contaminants and how they affect the health of communities and the natural world,” Chandler said. “The hundreds of studies and research findings that will be discussed during this conference will impact future policy decisions in environmental protection relevant to human health. The significance of this kind of work for an increasingly crowded planet cannot be overstated.”
One of the most interesting aspects of the conference is that some scientific posters, usually printed on large expanses of paper, will be shown electronically. The e-poster sessions – the first at an ISEE Conference – demonstrate a sustainable initiative in conferencing. This is one of several eco-friendly measures that the organizers have implemented to reduce the meeting’s overall environmental footprint. (See related article on this page.)
The goals of the conference are to:
- showcase ongoing interdisciplinary and international research in environmental epidemiology
- emphasize emerging global environmental health issues
- refine and develop new strategies to ameliorate health impacts caused by contamination of land, air and sea
- exchange novel scientific findings and methodological approaches, including a focus on characterizing the “exposome” (the combined exposures that a person receives in their lifetime) and how it relates to disease
- highlight successful environmental interventions, including how hazard communication with the public has helped to achieve desired health outcomes
- provide a sustainable conferencing experience by incorporating new “green-conference” approaches and technologies
- facilitate international collaboration in environmental and epidemiological research and training.
The conference executive planning committee includes Dr. Burch, Dr.Wilfried Karmaus of the Arnold School’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dr. Erik Svendsen of Tulane University, Dr. John Vena of the University of Georgia and Dr. Edward Fitzgerald of the University at Albany, State University of New York. Deborah Salzberg of the Arnold School is the conference planning director.
