Environment and diseases

Draft dossiers on health and environment

[A] Environment and diseases

1. Water pollution and health : a deadly burden
1.1	Water-related infectious diseases: the global burden
1.2	Water-related infectious diseases and their burden in India
1.3	Acute diarrhoeal diseases: a profile
1.4	Cholera
		Trends in independent India
		The hotspots
		Sanitation and cholera
		Control programmes and vaccination
1.5	Rotavirus diarrhoea
1.6	Typhoid (enteric fever)
		Vaccination
1.7	Viral hepatitis
		Hepatitis A
		Hepatitis E
1.8	Parasitic infestations
1.9	Polio
		The hotspots
		How polio crippled the entire health system
1.10	The National Diarrhoeal Disease Control Programme
1.11	Impact on vulnerable groups
		Women
		Children
		The poor
1.12	Water quality and its microbiological aspect
1.13	The environmental link
		Transmission: the faecal-oral route
		Sanitation. sewage and waste disposal
		Urbanisation
1.14	The problems of delivery
		Public health services: collapsed edific
		Water and sanitation programmes: tunnel vision
		Bureaucracy and corruption
		Drug resistance: a crisis in curative policy
1.15	Delhi: a case study
1.16	The way ahead

2. Air pollution and health
2. A	Indoor air pollution: the enemy within
2A. 1	Impact of biomass burning on health
		Blindness
		Neonatal immune system
		Respiratory disease
		Chronic respiratory diseases
		Chronic obstructive lung diseases
		Tuberculosis
		Cancer
		Adverse pregnancy outcomes
2A.2	Monitoring air quality in homes
2A.3	The fuel ladder
2A.4	The way ahead
		Cigarette smoke versus chulha smoke
		The biofuel menace
		Case studies of usage: three villages in the Garhwal Himalaya
		Interview with Kirk Smith
		Indoor air pollution due to modernisation of indoor environment
2B	Outdoor air pollution
3. Toxins
4 Noise pollution: deafening decibels
4.1	Noise levels and health effects
4.2	Noise levels in India
4.3	Regulations on noise: are they adequate?
4.4	The way ahead

5 Infectious and vector-borne diseases: where transmission is deadly
5A	The challenge
5A.1	The environmental link
5A.2	The poverty link
5A.3	History of disease control
5A.4	Current programmes for disease control
5A.5	Institutions for disease control
5A.6	Uncertain future of disease control
5A.7	Global shift in infectious diseases policy

5B	The diseases

5B.1	Japanese encephalitis
		Why blue-green algae is good for rice and bad for mosquitoes
		Control strategies
5B.2	Kala-azar
		An overview
		Crossing boundaries: the geographical spread
		The environmental link
		History of Kala-azar
		Bihar: the reservoir of kala-azar
		Drug resistance
		The need for an integrated approach
		Prevention. not cure
		In-depth
5B.3	Dengue
		An overview
		Crossing boundaries
		The government's attitude
		Prevention and control
		In-depth
5B.4	Plague
		An overview
		Crossing boundaries
		The environmental link
		What happened in Surat
		Attitudes towards plague
		Lessons of Surat
		In-depth
5B.5	Filariasis
		Ecology of the disease
		Control strategies
		What happened in the control programmes

5B.6	Fevers of unknown origins
		The Rae Bareilly mystery
		Meerut: ‘Japani viral’
		Delhi’s frequent fevers
		Mumbai’s leprospirosis
		Gurgaon’s tryst with fevers
		The ecology of mystery fevers
	Malaria - In Depth
		Environmental management and malaria
		Current status
		History
		Resurgence: a nightmare comes true
		Government responses
		Bioenvironmental management

6. Industrial disasters: booming in an unsafe environment
6.1	Industrial safety: miles to go
6.2	Legal safeguards
6.3	Site selection: hazardous
6.4	Industry’s attitude: human lives not worth a dime
6.5	Observance of the law: weak
6.6	Risk documentation and management: inadequate
6.7	Civil society and trade unions: unsure and inactive
6.8	The way ahead
6.9	Delhi: a case study