Charles W. Schmidt

Abstract

Today, advances in epidemiology and brain imaging are allowing new views of the environment’s role in mental illness to emerge. The traditional thinking in environmental health has historically viewed environmental threats in the context of infectious agents, pollutants, and other exogenous factors that influence the individual's physical surroundings. Scientists are now considering environmental threats to mental health to include not just these traditional parameters but also psychosocial conditions that relate to the individual’s perception of his or her surroundings. These new insights are shedding light on the etiology of psychiatric disorders as well as potential prevention strategies.

http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2007/115-8/focus-abs.html