Ninth International Symposium on Recent Advances in Environmental Health Research

This special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is dedicated to the publication of selected papers presented at the Eighth International Symposium on Recent Advances in Environmental Health Research. The Symposium was organized by Jackson State University (JSU) from 16–19 September, 2012 at the Marriott Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. It was built upon the overwhelming success of seven previous symposia hosted by JSU. [...]


on Recent Advances in Environmental Health
served as a platform to exchange innovative ideas and communicate the latest advances in scientific research and new developments on important environmental and human health topics including: Emerging Topics in Computational Biology and Environmental Modeling; Environmental Toxicology and Health Risk Assessment; Health Disparities and Environmental Security; Medical Geology and Human Health; Nanoscience, Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology, Natural Resources Damage Assessment and Management; and New Frontiers in Environmental Health Research [1][2][3].
The symposium attracted 298 participants from 22 countries representing all five continents. A total of two hundred twelve scientific presentations including 46 platform/oral and 166 poster presentations were made across the disciplines of environmental health, biomedical and clinical sciences, and public health. The scientific program included seven plenary sessions where oral/plenary presentations were given by forty six invited speakers. In addition, there were two poster sessionsone for faculty and professional scientists, and one for students that included awards for best posters presentations at four levels of the educational pipeline including high school, undergraduate, master and doctorate levels. Three certificates and monetary prizes (first, second and third) were awarded for each education level.
Original contributions were solicited on relevant topics of the Symposium. As in the past, authors were asked to access the journal's website and submit their full length manuscripts. Submitted manuscripts were processed and sent out for peer-review by environmental and public health experts in their respective fields. A rigorous peer-review process was conducted as previously described [1], and according to the high publication standard of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health-IJERPH [4]. With its recent (2012) first impact factor of 1.998, IJERH has emerged as one of the premier journals advancing scientific research that addresses critical issues related to environmental quality and public health. This high quality journal is now covered by leading indexing services including PubMed (Medline) and the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), EMBASE and Scopus (SciVerse). Full-text articles are also available through PubMed Central [4].
I wish to extend special thanks to Dr. Billy Thomas (Vice-Chancellor for Diversity and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA) for serving as Distinguished Speaker for the Biomedical Sciences and Health Information Lecture Series that is held in conjunction with the Symposium. Dr. Thomas presented an historic perspective of the health care system as it relates to health issues associated with health disparities and discussed the benefits of increasing the diversity of the biomedical workforce. He also provided some key recommendations that will move us towards a culturally competent health care system and a robust biomedical workforce development. Other plenary presentations and keynote addresses were made by prominent biomedical and environmental health scientists and engineers with research expertise in cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, infectious and parasitic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, gene-environment interactions, nanoscience and nanomedicine, emerging technologies, health disparities and other environmentally-related illnesses. These important health issues were associated with the symposium topics [1][2][3].
Session chairpersons included Dr. Mario Azevedo, Jackson State University, College of Public Service, Jackson, Mississippi, USA; Dr. Gloria Calaf, University of Tarapaca, Arica, Chile; Dr. Jose Centeno, Joint Pathology Center of Malcom Grow Medical Clinic, Department of Biophysical