COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHIES: AN ESSENTIAL SERVICE TO THE GEOLOGY AND HEALTH COMMUNITY (Invited Presentation)

Geology and Health (Medical Geology) is one of the most diverse, multidisciplinary scientific fields having practitioners from the geosciences, public health, epidemiology, toxicology, environmental health, medical geography, and occupational health, to name just a few of the disciplines. Moreover, these researchers are working in more than 100 countries publishing their research in hundreds of geographically and scientifically diverse journals. This diversity, though healthy, makes it difficult to keep up with current relevant research papers. A survey of several hundred articles in Google Scholar and PubMed using the key words ‘geology and health’ and ‘medical geology’ published since 2006 revealed more than 300 articles in 166 different journal outlets. GeoRef added 120 unique references and ScienceDirect 65. The articles appeared in journals directed to audiences in: general science, geology/geochemistry, mineralogy/mining, soil science, hydrology, medical science/public health, nutrition, radiation/hazardous materials, occupational health, environmental science, agronomy, geography, chemistry, physics, and archeology. Though many of the journals are international in scope, articles appeared in journals published in Austria, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, U.K. and the U.S. To help medical geology practitioners keep up with this disciplinary diverse, widespread literature we recommend that the organizations serving this discipline provide, in their newsletters and on their web site, periodic comprehensive bibliographies gleaned from key search engines. Such compilations would provide a very useful service to their membership and also benefit the organizations by identifying potential members and conference attendees.