Professor Lanphear is a public health professor based at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He has an international reputation for studying the role of pollution in human disease. His talk abstract is as follows:

In the fall of 1978, physicians and scientists gathered in Bethesda, Maryland to solve a mystery: why had deaths from coronary heart disease plummeted in the US, but not in Britain? The attendees concluded that preventive measures and medical care contributed equally to the decline, but it was clear that nobody really knew why coronary deaths had declined. Using data from the United States and Britain, this presentation will explore reasons for the mysterious decline in coronary heart disease deaths, including the insidious role of pollutants. New estimates on the global burden of disease for this mysterious element will also be presented.

This lecture is generously funded by the Litchfield fund.