"Understanding Public Health" Series Editors: Nick Black and Rosalind Raine. There is an increasing global awareness of the inevitable limits of individual health care and of the need to complement such services with effective public health strategies. "Understanding Public Health" is an innovative series of twenty books, published by Open University Press in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It provides self-directed learning covering the major issues in public health affecting low, middle and high income countries. The series is aimed at those studying public health, either by distance learning or more traditional methods, as well as public health practitioners and policy makers. Environmental health policy occupies a prominent position on both local and global agendas as old and new challenges confront the human race. There is a continual requirement for policies which will deal effectively with a seemingly never-ending supply of hazards which impinge on health and wellbeing. This book provides a multidisciplinary window onto environmental policy and its formulation. From this you will observe both order which exists at the centre, and controversies around the borders. This book considers: key threats to human health from the physical environment; policies that might be pursued to minimise those risks; how risks can be identified and quantified; how such information can be communicated to the public; how health impact assessments can be carried out; and how risks can be managed and regulated.