Preface [Special Issue: Earth materials and human health]

Abstract

[Excerpt] This conference was hosted by the Universidade de Aveiro under the sponsorship of the Instituto Superior Técnico—Universidade de Lisboa, the GeoBioTec Research Centre, the CERENA Research Centre and the IMGA—International Medical Geology Association. This conference, which is a biannual event, promotes the fruitful knowledge exchange between geoscientists and medical practitioners around the world, while showing the high standards of the scientific research that are being carried out in this emerging discipline.

This event received considerable national and international attention. Over 150 participants from 36 countries, namely Algeria, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Rwanda, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK, Ukraine, Uruguay and USA, have attended this Symposium. During 5 days, 135 papers (68 oral presentations and 67 poster presentations) were presented in MEDGEO’15 Conference distributed by the following topics: 1 - Environmental contaminants in health and disease; 2 - Environmental toxicology, pathology and epidemiology; 3 - Climate change and human health; 4 - Therapeutic properties of minerals and waters; 5 - Urban medical geology; 6 - Modeling, mapping and monitoring of environmental hazards and diseases; 7 - Advances in analytical methods. This highlights the increasing importance of Medical Geology in current research, teaching and politics. [...]