Environmental Health and Nursing Practice.

Edited by Barbara Sattler and Jane Lipscomb. New York:Springer Publishing Company, 2003. 380 pp. ISBN: 0-8261-428245, $49.95 cloth.

Nursing has waited a long time for this book. Despite the conclusion of the Institute of Medicine's 1995 report, Nursing, Health & the Environment, which argued that a greater focus on environmental health was needed in nursing practice, research, and education, no text on environmental health has been directed specifically to practicing nurses. As Lillian Mood states in the foreword, this was "a dimension of practice that had been undervalued and overlooked."

With the goal of alerting nurses to the importance of environmental health to nursing practice, Environmental Health and Nursing Practice introduces readers to a broad range of relevant ideas, from basic concepts (e.g., risk assessment and environmental epidemiology) to discussions of selected hazards (e.g., pesticides and environmental tobacco smoke), media (e.g., water, air, and food), and populations (e.g., children and workers). Although some areas, such as air pollution, are treated in less depth than others, nurses across several subspecialties will relate to the timely and engaging content and the broad-based approach.

The book opens with a section dedicated to the health care industry, a practical yet effective strategy because this setting is familiar and understandable territory for nurses. Through environmental and occupational examples, such as mercury and ergonomics, nurses are educated about the ways in which they can have an impact in their own backyard. Furthermore, they are introduced to some of the overarching principles that operate within a setting that they probably thought they understood very well. Intriguing examples (of-ten drawn from the popular media, such as the book and film A Civil Action) then take the reader into what may be considered less familiar territory, but which nonetheless demonstrates the relevance of environmental health to nursing practice. For example, pediatric nurses stand to benefit from the discussions of child health, environmental tobacco smoke, and environmental health risks in schools. The emergency care nurse may relate to chapters on pesticide exposure or history taking, as well as others. The link between environmental health and nursing is further cemented through the presentation of many practical recommended actions that nurses can take to prevent negative human health effects related to environmental or occupational exposures, such as those found in the health care industry.

As a significant guide to environmental health resources, this book provides a useful compendium of organizations whose missions address environmental health. Descriptions and contact information, although running the unavoidable risk of future obsolescence, are found in the appendix and throughout the book. These are reinforced by direct examples that illustrate the responsibilities, roles, and activities of these agencies using case studies of their current projects or of their past response to environmental problems and incidents. The references that accompany the chapters serve as resources for nurses who are newly interested in environmental health--although some chapters are more thoroughly referenced than others, and references do not consistently appear for every chapter.

The chapter on environmental epidemiology does an excellent job of promoting the link between environmental health research and nursing practice, although the emphasis on research is upheld less strongly in other sections. Missing from the discussion are natural environmental hazards such as flood disasters, earthquakes, and global climate change. Though some of these natural environmental hazards are less closely linked to human control than others, they all have a definite and unarguable impact on human health.

Nevertheless, it is difficult for any one resource to cover everything, and Sattler and Lipscomb have opened the door for future publications to expand to additional relevant topics as well as to provide updates on the status of those issues introduced in this book. (For instance, genetically engineered or genetically modified foods are a prime example of an evolving story that nurses may want to pursue.) In keeping with the editors' hope that this book will be the first acquisition in a library on the subject of environmental health and nursing, their work will inspire others to add to the available collection.

Jacqueline Agnew is a Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she directs the Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Program and the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center in Occupational Health and Safety. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, & Medicine as well as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health National Occupational Research Agenda Liaison Committee.