California Air Resources Board

"We Are What We Eat and Breathe, and Build: Preventing Chronic Diseases and Protecting the Environment by Building Healthy Communities"

Richard Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P., Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health at UCLA.

July 11, 2012

• Presentation

California and the U.S. face grave challenges in economy, environment, and health. “Easy oil” is gone and other resources are being depleted. Global heating increasingly threatens human health and species survival worldwide. Medical care costs will continue to escalate for reasons of technology and population aging, and the tripling of obesity and doubling of diabetes rates will impose staggering health and productivity costs, so that by the year 2030 eleven percent of U.S. adults will have a Body Mass Index over 40 (100 pounds overweight).

These challenges demand solutions that solve problems across the domains of economy, environment, and health. To meet these fiscal, social, and environmental needs, California must demand top-down and bottom-up solutions. California is showing leadership in greenhouse gas reduction and sustainability, in new technologies and pollution reduction, but needs a vision for human habitats, homes and offices, neighborhoods, and transit systems that salvage health as well as the economy and the planet: communities that use fewer resources and at the same time offer rich engagement in life, meaningful work, local healthy food, and plenty of “incidental” physical activity.

Dr. Jackson will present strategies to get these options to work.

Speaker Biography

Dr. Richard Jackson is Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health at UCLA and has appointments in the Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, Urban Planning, and in Pediatrics in the School of Medicine. Dr. Jackson is a pediatrician who analyzes and addresses the impact of the environment on health, particularly children’s health. He has a strong focus on sustainability and health including climate change issues. Over the past decade much of his work has focused on how the 'built environment', including architecture and urban planning, affects health.

Dr. Jackson chaired the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health and has done extensive work on pesticides, and in epidemiology, infectious diseases and toxicology. He was for nine years the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control National Center for Environmental Health. Dr. Jackson has served on the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects and is an elected honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. Dr. Jackson has co-authored three books on Built Environment and Health and hosted a related U.S. Public Television series, Designing Healthy Communities.

More Information

The Chair of the California Air Resources Board invites guests to speak on environmental subjects involving air pollution and global warming. Find additional lectures on the Chair's Lecture Series webpage.