Abstract

Traditionally, the effects of environmental contaminants on human health are regarded as physical health effects. This is certainly true at certain contaminants hot spots and extreme pollution incidents, but may not reflect the true societal impacts at low dose, chronic exposure. Our hypothesis is that other impacts, such as behavioral changes due to public fear, may be equally serious, especially in communities where the public attention to environmental contaminants (e.g. through media) is high. Most literature on the socio economic impacts of environmental contaminants have focussed on the physical health effects and estimated cost related to such effects. However, exposure to such compounds has come to be recognized as a significant stressor also having social and psychological ramifications for the individual, the family, the community and the society. The presentation will discuss how the presence at various levels of environmental contaminants in fish and following fish consumption advisories may affect people's behaviour and what may be the socio economic impacts. We will point to how Norwegian and Canadian policies on food consumption advisories due to contaminants in fish have been differently communicated, despite the same dose-response data being the basis for both cases. The most obvious example of societal impacts of environmental contaminants may be on first nation communities in northern Canada. There, indirect negative effects of toxic contaminants on health, mediated through the disruption of lifestyle and eating patterns and the associated socio-cultural and socio-economic consequences have, in many cases, been significant. These social factors have raised challenges in determining practical public health policies on the issue; when developing policy and risk management approaches, it is vital to carefully balance all negative as well as positive factors, including social and cultural ones. In order to develop a solid basis for such policies, cooperation between social and natural sciences is needed.

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