A MINERALOGIST DOES RISK AND EPIDEMIOLOGY, AND OTHER CRITICAL THINKING EXERCISES IN GEOLOGY AND HUMAN HEALTH

We are bombarded daily from the media about health risks associated with countless things, many of which are geologically based (e.g., asbestos in the air or arsenic in the water). How do we ascertain the validity of these claims? More importantly, how do we teach students to do this? As scientists, we should be able to evaluate risks and make informed decisions, yet many geologists chose not to attend the Boston GSA meeting in Fall 2001 for fear of terrorism, while the odds of something happening to them was infinitesimally small. Also, many of us have removed asbestos from our mineral collections in fear that a brief exposure might induce a deadly disease. So our own perception of risk often, unfortunately, outweighs our rational decision making process. Examples will be given how to critically evaluate risk, understand the difference between risk and risk perception, and to teach these to students. One method to determine risks from geological sources is to perform an epidemiology study and combine it with knowledge of geological exposures. For instance, epidemiologic studies of asbestos miners led us to understand that certain types of asbestos were more harmful than others. But how do we perform these studies, and how can we teach them to students? Government agencies compile mortality data yearly; these data are available in a series of books called Vital Statistics of the US (to 1993, and thereafter available on the web at www.cdc.gov). Three examples will be given where death rates for different diseases were complied on a county basis within a state and then attempts were made to correlate these death rates with some geological factor. The examples are: 1) breast cancer related to local rock type in California, 2) lung cancer and asbestos in Montana, and 3) respirable quartz and lung cancer in Idaho. These exercises can be completed within several hours of library or web-based data collection and analysis. As you and the students will find, many questions will arise once the data are complied, and it is these questions that will lead to development of critical thinking skills. Lastly, it might seem strange for a mineralogist to perform an epidemiology study or discuss risk, but how many non-mineralogists discuss minerals?