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AMA turns green
AMA Victoria’s Council decided last night to support efforts to highlight the link between the health of our physical environment and public health.
Chair of the Victoria Council, Dr Mark Yates, said doctors had an important role to play in the debate around environmental change and potential risks to public health.
"It is now well acknowledged that changes to our environment can result in changes which will affect our health. Worsening air pollution increases the incidence and severity of respiratory disease, temperature increases can lead to a spread in airborne diseases, and declining water quality may result in gastro-intestinal illnesses. There are also concerns about the loss of biodiversity and the impact this has upon our ability to develop new medicines and treatments.
"As a first step, we plan to develop an AMA Victoria statement outlining the health impacts of global warming and degradation of air and water quality," Dr Yates said.
"AMA Victoria as the peak medical body in the state is able to draw on the expertise within its diverse membership and work collaboratively to improve health outcomes by promoting better environmental management.
"There may also be the opportunity to organise and host forums on topical environmental health issues to bring together different strands of research and policy development."
The Council made its decision after listening to one of the world’s foremost experts on the issue, Director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor Tony McMichael.
Prof. McMichael, Chair of Health Impact Assessment for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and member of the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Globalisation and Health, has written two books about climate change and the effects on human health, and presented this evidence to Council members last night.
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