Latest from the Health and Environment Forum

About the Forum:

There is much evidence that our society's treatment of the environment has far-reaching health implications. With each advance in scientific research, more and more connections are being found between diseases and environmental factors. These links between health and the environment were the key focus for the Heschel Center's ninth Maof seminar held in May 2007.

The Maof Seminars [3] provide a platform for free-flowing exchange and inter-organizational networking amongst social-environmental organizations in Israel. The aim of the “Between health and environment” seminar was to build the capacity among health professionals and environmental NGOs, in order to create agents of change in education, policy, research, health practice and civil public action with respect to the links between health and the environment.

Forty-four representatives from twenty-seven organizations took part in the seminar. As a result, a number of work groups were formed to focus on the following issues: Air pollution, chemicals, environmental impact surveys, cancer, radiation, and women's health.  Placing environmental issues on the agenda of patient and health organizations was another major outcome of the seminar. For example, the breast cancer advocacy NGO, One of Nine has decided to devote the upcoming breast cancer awareness day to the issue of dangerous chemicals, and has begun working with the Heschel Center in its planning.