Dr. Doug Boddy, in conjunction with leading Environmental and Public Health experts in New Zealand, has recently been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Their paper is titled The Built Environment – A Missing “Cause of the Causes” of Non-Communicable Diseases.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases. The United Nations “25 × 25 Strategy” of decreasing NCDs by 25% by 2025 does not appear to take into account all causes of NCDs—its focus is on afew diseases, which are often linked with life-style factors with “voluntary” “modifiable behavioral risk factors” causes with what we perceive to be an over-simplification of the issues.
The paper proposes some additional aspects of the built environment related to hazardous building materials and detailed form of the construction of infrastructure and buildings, which we think are some of the missing causes of NCDs—many of which could be termed “involuntary causes” as they relate to factors that are beyond the control of the public.
Dr Doug Boddy is a Senior Air Quality Consultant at MWH Global and is based in Auckland, New Zealand.
Doug is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with over 13 years’ experience working in the air quality sector, the majority of which has been in multi-disciplinary environmental consultancies in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. Doug is experienced in managing complex, multi-disciplinary projects and has undertaken atmospheric dispersion modelling assessments, ambient and indoor air quality monitoring, wind microclimate assessments and environmental management plans for a wide range of public and private sector clients. Doug has also undertaken a number of odour and dust investigations for a wide range of emission sources. Doug holds a PhD from the Energy and Resources Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK.
