A NURSE'S REQUEST TO PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGISTS

There is a growing body of evidence that the environment, both natural and anthropogenic, contributes in many ways to the health and/or disease of human beings. We need information and propose some basic questions that health professionals and medical people would ask of geoscientists so that our efforts could be more beneficial for our patients, and benefit personal and community health.

Health professionals think in terms of routes of exposure: air, water, food, or in terms of body systems: respiratory, gastrointestinal, and integumentary (skin). We would like to better understand the natural processes that affect, for example, ground and surface water contamination or what natural air currents and wind pattern do to improve or detract from community health.

Geologists can assist us with the following more specific questions; How do rock formations/complexes contribute to local contamination of air, soil and water with heavy metals, radon, etc? How do they detract from a healthy food supply? What contaminants should one test for in surface water, groundwater, wells, sewage treatment effluent/ discharges that might affect humans? What would a geoscientist expect in ash, stack emissions or water effluent from municipal or medical waste incinerators? Where should these materials be disposed?.

When geoscientists and health professionals come together they both contribute to better human and community health.