Contested Illnesses

The politics and science of health and disease remain contested terrain among scientists, health practitioners, policy makers, industry, communities, and the public. Stakeholders in disputes about illnesses or conditions disagree over their fundamental causes as well as how they should be treated and prevented. This thought-provoking book crosses disciplinary boundaries by engaging with both public health policy and social science, asserting that science, activism, and policy are not separate issues and showing how the contribution of environmental factors in disease is often overlooked.

Phil Brown, founder of the Contested Illnesses Research Group at Brown University, is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies. He is the author of No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action (UC Press). Rachel Morello-Frosch is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Stephen Zavestoski is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Environmental Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

Part One. Setting the Stage: Introduction, Theory, Methods
1. Introduction: Environmental Justice and Contested Illnesses
Rachel Morello-Frosch, Phil Brown, and Stephen Zavestoski

2. Embodied Health Movements
Phil Brown, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Stephen Zavestoski, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, Rebecca Gasior Altman, Crystal Adams, Elizabeth Hoover, and Ruth Simpson

3. Qualitative Approaches in Environmental Health Research
Phil Brown

4. Getting into the Field: New Approaches to Research Methods
Phil Brown, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Stephen Zavestoski

5. Environmental Justice and the Precautionary Principle: Air Toxics Exposures and Health Risks among Schoolchildren in Los Angeles
Rachel Morello-Frosch, Manuel Pastor, and James Sadd

Part Two. Working in the Environmental Health Field: Ethnographic Studies
6. A Narrowing Gulf of Difference? Disputes and Discoveries in the Study of Gulf War–Related Illnesses
Phil Brown, Stephen Zavestoski, Alissa Cordner, Sabrina McCormick, Joshua Mandelbaum, Theo Luebke, and Meadow Linder

7. The Health Politics of Asthma: Environmental Justice and Collective Illness Experience
Phil Brown, Brian Mayer, Stephen Zavestoski, Theo Luebke, Joshua Mandelbaum, Sabrina McCormick, and Mercedes Lyson

8. Pollution Comes Home and Gets Personal: Women’s Experience of Household Chemical Exposure
Rebecca Gasior Altman, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Julia Green Brody, Ruthann A. Rudel, Phil Brown, and Mara Averick

9. The Personal Is Scientific, the Scientific Is Political: The Public Paradigm of the Environmental Breast Cancer Movement
Sabrina McCormick, Phil Brown, Stephen Zavestoski, and Alissa Cordner

10. School Custodians and Green Cleaners: Labor-Environmental Coalitions and Toxics Reduction
Laura Senier, Brian Mayer, Phil Brown, and Rachel Morello-Frosch

11. Labor-Environmental Coalition Formation: Framing and the Right to Know
Brian Mayer, Phil Brown, and Rachel Morello-Frosch

12. The Brown Superfund Research Program: A Multistakeholder Partnership Addresses Problems in Contaminated Communities
Laura Senier, Benjamin Hudson, Sarah Fort, Elizabeth Hoover, Rebecca Tillson, and Phil Brown

Part Three. Ethical Considerations
13. Toxic Ignorance and the Right to Know: Biomonitoring Results Communication; A Survey of Scientists and Study Participants
Rachel Morello-Frosch, Julia Green Brody, Phil Brown, Rebecca Gasior Altman, Ruthann A. Rudel, Carla Pérez, and Alison Cohen

14. IRB Challenges in Community-Based Participatory Research on Human Exposure to Environmental Toxics: A Case Study
Phil Brown, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Julia Green Brody, Rebecca Gasior Altman, Ruthann A. Rudel, Laura Senier, Carla Perez, and Ruth Simpson

15. Conclusion
Phil Brown, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Stephen Zavestoski

Appendix: Contested Illnesses Research Group’s Nuts and Bolts and Lessons Learned
Laura Senier, Rebecca Gasior Altman, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Phil Brown

References
List of Contributors
Index

For additional appendixes, see www.ucpress.edu/go/contestedillnesses