Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.
Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology
Dr. Geoffrey C. Kabat
€ 47.29
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology
Paperback. Num Pages: 272 pages, 12 illus, 12 tables. BIC Classification: MBNH2; MBNS. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 229 x 156 x 15. Weight in Grams: 392.
The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking in our everyday lives, but many of these hazards turn out to have been greatly overblown. According to author and epidemiologist Geoffrey C. Kabat, this hyping of low-level environmental hazards leads to needless anxiety and confusion on the part of the public concerning which exposures have important effects on health and which are likely to have minimal or no effect. Kabat approaches health scares as social facts and shows that a variety of factors can contribute to the inflating of a hazard. These include skewed reporting by the media, but also, surprisingly, the actions of researchers who may emphasize certain findings while ignoring others; regulatory and health agencies eager to show their responsiveness to the health concerns of the public; and politicians and advocates with a stake in a particular outcome. By means of four case studies, Kabat demonstrates how a powerful confluence of interests can lead to overstating or distorting the scientific evidence. He considers the health risks of pollutants such as DDT as a cause of breast cancer, electromagnetic fields from power lines, radon within residences, and secondhand tobacco smoke. Tracing the trajectory of each of these hazards from its initial emergence to the present, Kabat shows how publication of more rigorous studies and critical assessments ultimately help put hazards in perspective.
Product Details
Publisher
Columbia University Press United States
Number of pages
272
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2011
Condition
New
Weight
392g
Number of Pages
272
Place of Publication
New York, United States
ISBN
9780231141499
SKU
V9780231141499
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Dr. Geoffrey C. Kabat
Geoffrey Kabat is Senior epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center. He is the author of Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology and Getting Risk Right, both with CUP. He also blogs regularly for Forbes magazine.
Reviews for Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology
The book can engage and enlighten regarding the complex context in which known and suspected health risks are identified, explored, and acted on.
Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H The New England Journal of Medicine A strong, valuable corrective to public understanding of the debate of environmental hazards... Highly Recommended. CHOICE Reading and reflecting on the thesis of this book can only help epidemiologists be more aware of our place in society and thus be more effective contributors.
David A. Savitz American Journal of Epidemiology With clarity and dispassion, Geoffrey C. Kabat challenges widespread beliefs that secondhand smoke, low levels of radon, and other ostensible environmental nemeses are certain killers. In making his case, Kabat draws extensively on scientific evidence while shunning rhetoric and political posturing. The result is an admirable search for scientific truth amid a sea of conflicting and often uninformed opinions.
Leonard Cole, Rutgers University Geoffrey C. Kabat, a respected epidemiologist, provides an insider's account of how a number of ostensible health hazards have been blown out of proportion. While we face a daily barrage of health scares, Kabat cuts through the confusion and provides a lucid and rigorous rationale for rejecting much of the fear culture that permeates our society.
Shelly Ungar, University of Toronto This book does an exceptionally good job, first by putting epidemiology within the context of public health and then by explaining key terms, concepts, and methods. It provides a penetrating treatment of a difficult and complex subject in a readily understandable way.
Steven D. Stellman, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Kabat, who wrote Hyping Health Risks
a fascinating and detailed examination of how we fell for certain, illusory environmental hazards
is possibly the only epidemiologist in the world to have also published a book on Dostoyevsky (he got a Ph.D in Russian and comparative literature from Columbia before switching tracks). And the background in literary analysis and theory adds a crucial ability to explain why we, as a society, are prone to turning hypothetical risks into social facts. The upshot is that most public alarms about health risks dispense with the tools required to make sense of the alarm
and we end up with disembodied findings and ideology.
Trevor Butterworth Forbes Health scares come and go, but they often have a tenuous scientific basis. Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist, systematically rips through cancer alerts that overrode scientific rigor in recent decades. In so doing, he dispels the dubious science underlying the scares and explains how public confusion can come about. ... He extends his critique to debates linking radon gas exposure and secondhand cigarette smoke exposure to lung cancer. Those chapters will ruffle some feathers, but Kabat is unafraid of controversy.
Nathan Seppa ScienceNews rich and valuable...
Trevor Butterworth Forbes.com
Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H The New England Journal of Medicine A strong, valuable corrective to public understanding of the debate of environmental hazards... Highly Recommended. CHOICE Reading and reflecting on the thesis of this book can only help epidemiologists be more aware of our place in society and thus be more effective contributors.
David A. Savitz American Journal of Epidemiology With clarity and dispassion, Geoffrey C. Kabat challenges widespread beliefs that secondhand smoke, low levels of radon, and other ostensible environmental nemeses are certain killers. In making his case, Kabat draws extensively on scientific evidence while shunning rhetoric and political posturing. The result is an admirable search for scientific truth amid a sea of conflicting and often uninformed opinions.
Leonard Cole, Rutgers University Geoffrey C. Kabat, a respected epidemiologist, provides an insider's account of how a number of ostensible health hazards have been blown out of proportion. While we face a daily barrage of health scares, Kabat cuts through the confusion and provides a lucid and rigorous rationale for rejecting much of the fear culture that permeates our society.
Shelly Ungar, University of Toronto This book does an exceptionally good job, first by putting epidemiology within the context of public health and then by explaining key terms, concepts, and methods. It provides a penetrating treatment of a difficult and complex subject in a readily understandable way.
Steven D. Stellman, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Kabat, who wrote Hyping Health Risks
a fascinating and detailed examination of how we fell for certain, illusory environmental hazards
is possibly the only epidemiologist in the world to have also published a book on Dostoyevsky (he got a Ph.D in Russian and comparative literature from Columbia before switching tracks). And the background in literary analysis and theory adds a crucial ability to explain why we, as a society, are prone to turning hypothetical risks into social facts. The upshot is that most public alarms about health risks dispense with the tools required to make sense of the alarm
and we end up with disembodied findings and ideology.
Trevor Butterworth Forbes Health scares come and go, but they often have a tenuous scientific basis. Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist, systematically rips through cancer alerts that overrode scientific rigor in recent decades. In so doing, he dispels the dubious science underlying the scares and explains how public confusion can come about. ... He extends his critique to debates linking radon gas exposure and secondhand cigarette smoke exposure to lung cancer. Those chapters will ruffle some feathers, but Kabat is unafraid of controversy.
Nathan Seppa ScienceNews rich and valuable...
Trevor Butterworth Forbes.com