Measuring historical pollution: Natural history collections as tools for public health and environmental justice research.

ABSTRACT: Through the industrial era, pollutants have been unevenly distributed in the environment, disproportionately impacting disenfranchised communities. Redressing the unequal distribution of environmental pollution is thus a question of environmental justice and public health that requires policy solutions. However, data on pollutants for many locations and time periods are limited because environmental monitoring is largely reactive-i.e., pollutants are monitored only after they are recognized as harmful and are circulating in the environment at elevated levels. Without comprehensive historical pollution data, it is difficult to understand the full, intergenerational consequences of pollutants on environmental and human health. We assert that biological specimens in natural history collection

SUBMITTER: DuBay S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12184430 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature