October 1, 1995 Contact: Jennifer McNulty (408/459-2495)

PUBLIC HEALTH DEPENDS ON STRICT ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS, SAYS UCSC PROFESSOR WHO WILL DELIVER FREE PUBLIC LECTURE ON OCTOBER 26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Contrary to those who complain that stringent environmental regulations place an unfair burden on business, Ronnie Lipschutz, an assistant professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says tough environmental standards make a key contribution to public health.

Lipschutz will discuss the relationship of environmental protection to community health on Thursday, October 26, in a talk titled "Healthy Environment, Healthy Community: Promoting Community Health in California Through Effective Environmental Protection, Regulation, and Education." The hour-long talk, which is open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. in room 150 at Stevenson College on the UCSC campus. Admission is free. A reception will follow in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge. The talk is part of the 1995 Wellness Lecture Series, sponsored by the California Wellness Foundation and the University of California.

"A clean environment reduces medical costs," says Lipschutz. "It's not simply an amenity or an economic or regulatory burden." Among the health risks of environmental degradation are respiratory ailments, cancers, birth defects, low birth weights, cataracts, and other illnesses.

Critics of environmental regulations are quick to cite the cost of efforts to control pollution, radiation, toxic chemicals, hazardous wastes, and other threats--estimates range from $88 billion to $300 billion a year nationwide. Equally important but rarely studied, says Lipschutz, are the health benefits of environmental protection. Such benefits are difficult to calculate, says Lipschutz, but one study in the mid-1980s estimated that although the cost of air pollution control efforts in California would reach $3 billion a year by 1987, the health benefits would add up to $4 billion annually.

The former Soviet Bloc stands as a chilling example of the human cost of environmental damage, says Lipschutz. Studies reveal that the incidence of various environmentally linked illnesses is on the rise and that life expectancies are falling. Researchers blame the disturbing trends on the declining delivery of health services, high levels of pollutants in the air, water, and elsewhere, and ecological damage from obsolescent and unregulated industries and other facilities.

"You look at places like Russia that don't have the environmental regulations we do, and you can see that the costs are very high," says Lipschutz. "It's easier to calculate what we're spending on environmental protection than it is to calculate what costs we'd bear if we weren't taking those precautions. I don't think the benefits are quantifiable in the same dollars-and-cents way. It becomes a question of the value of human life, and, ultimately, what are society's values. Do we value collective health, or do we say that people who are exposed to environmental hazards can always move away?"

Lipschutz proposes a new model of community health monitoring that would involve neighborhoods, schools, and public health agencies. "Communities need to act together in a much more concerted way to ensure the environmental quality of where they live," says Lipschutz, who envisions a network of residents monitoring such factors as air and water quality. Local schools, community colleges, and universities could be tapped to analyze samples and review records for indications of problems. If any such "hot spots" were detected, the records would provide valuable information for public health authorities at minimal expense, says Lipschutz, noting that an extensive community-based water-quality monitoring effort is already under way in Eastern Europe.

Such a system would benefit many communities, especially poor and minority neighborhoods that typically get little attention despite the likelihood that they face the highest health risk from environmental exposure, says Lipschutz.

"We tend to think that environmental protection is a government function that serves the public good," says Lipschutz. "The problem is that we can't always rely on government to provide us with the necessary amount of public good. It's important that communities play an active role in ensuring environmental quality."

Lipschutz's talk is one of six lectures to be delivered by UC faculty members during this year's Wellness Lecture Series. The California Wellness Foundation is an independent private foundation created in 1992 by an endowment from Health Net, the state's second-largest health maintenance organization, to improve the health of Californians.

In addition to the lecture, Lipschutz will participate in a forum with statewide policy makers later this year.

Editor's note: Ronnie Lipschutz can be reached at (408) 459-3275 or via e-mail at rlipsch@cats.ucsc.edu.

(This release is also available on UC NewsWire, the University of California's electronic news service. To access by modem, dial 1- 209-244-6971.)

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