| Professors in the Field |
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Barbara Goldoftas
Visiting Instuctor of Environmental Science and Policy
Phone: (508) 421-3824
Email: bgoldoftas@clarku.edu
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Research Interests
Environmental and social determinants of health, environmental epidemiology, urban environmental health, health and ecological change, susceptible populations, the use of mixed methods in public and environmental health research
Biography
Barbara Goldoftas originally trained in botany and plant ecology before becoming a science writer. As a writer and investigative journalist, she covered economic development, health, and environment, reporting from the Philippines beginning in the early 1990s. Her investigation of poultry slaughterhouses received a 1990 National Magazine Award for its “demonstrable impact on an area of significant public interest.” Her investigation of HIV and for-profit blood banks in Manila contributed to the country’s shift to a not-for-profit blood-bank system. She taught science writing at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wellesley College.
Her book, The Green Tiger: The Costs of Ecological Decline in the Philippines (Oxford 2006), analyzes the social, political, and economic causes of the rapid destruction of the Philippines’ once-rich natural resources—and the far-reaching costs: weakened rural economies, burgeoning migration, the collapse of the timber industry, deeply polluted urban environments.
Her research in the Philippines deepened her interest in human health and the environment and led to the doctoral program in environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her dissertation research is on longitudinal associations between neighborhood environmental health conditions and type 2 diabetes among older adults in England and the United States. She has presented portions of this work at the Urban Affairs Association, the American Public Health Association, and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.
Selected Publications
The Green Tiger: The Costs of Ecological Decline in the Philippines (Oxford University Press, 2006)
“The Urban Elderly in the United States: Health Status and the Environment,” with Russ Lopez, 2009. Reviews on Environmental Health, volume 24 no. 1 pp. 47-54
“A Natural Disaster’s Political Roots,” Boston Globe op-ed, March 4, 2006
“Unnatural Disasters,” San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, January 11, 1999
“Flexibility versus Efficiency? A Case Study of Model Changeovers in the Toyota Production System,” with Paul S. Adler and David I. Levine, 1999. Organization Science, volume 10 no. 1 January-February pp. 43-68
“Ergonomics, Employee Involvement, and the Toyota Production System: A Case Study of NUMMI's 1993 Model Introduction,” with Paul S. Adler and David I. Levine, 1997, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 1997, pp. 416‑437
“Ain't nothing down here but johns—and us,” Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, January 16, 1994
“America's Last Legacy to the Philippines,” San Francisco Chronicle, This World, March 29, 1992
HIV and AIDS in the Philippines. Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Magazine, February 1992
“Logging Kills the Land and People,” Perspective Sunday section, Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 15, 1991
“Subic Bay: Bases a focus of social ills,” Perspective Sunday section, Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 22, 1991
“Hands That Hurt: Repetitive Motion Injuries on the Job,” Technology Review, January 1991
“Coming Home to Roost,” Dollars & Sense, January/February 1990
“Inside the Slaughterhouse,” Southern Exposure, Summer 1989
“To Make a Tender Chicken: Poultry Workers Pay the Price,” Dollars & Sense, September 1989
Courses
Epidemiologic Perspectives on Global Health
Environmental and Social Epidemiology
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