The Pump Handle

About

The Pump Handle is a place for people interested in public health and the environment to discuss the issues that interest us. The story of the pump handle is familiar to any first-semester public health student: During the London cholera epidemic of 1854, John Snow examined maps of cholera cases and traced the disease to water from a local pump. At the time, the prevailing theory held that cholera spread through the air, rather than water, so Snow faced criticism from others in the science community – not to mention resistance from the water companies. He finally convinced community leaders to remove the pump’s handle to prevent further exposure.

More than a century later, thousands of people still die from cholera each year, and providing clean drinking water to the world’s entire population is a far-off goal. The Pump Handle symbolizes both a public health victory and the challenges facing the public health and environmental fields today.

Because the blog's primary authors, Liz Borkowski and Celeste Monforton, work in the Department of Environmental Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services, much of our content focuses on environmental and occupational health issues. As part of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP), we’re also interested how science is used to set public policy.

Our occupational health work is supported by a grant from the Public Welfare Foundation. The views expressed on this blog are solely those of its authors, and do not reflect the opinions of the George Washington University or our funders.

If you’d like to subscribe to our weekly email digest, which includes links and short descriptions for each of the posts published over the past week, send an email to thepumphandle (at) gmail (dot) com with “subscribe” in the subject line.

Visit the archives of our Wordpress blog here.

Special Features
Effect Measure @ TPH: Our main inspiration for launching The Pump Handle back in 2006 was the blog Effect Measure, which combined clear, in-depth scientific explanations of public health topics with strong opinions about how we should make things better. We’re grateful to its authors, the Reveres, for the guidance they’ve offered us over the years and for letting us cross-post some of their work on our blog. Like Effect Measure’s many avid readers, we were saddened to learn about their plans to shut down. Lucky for us, the Reveres have agreed to post on The Pump Handle from time to time, so we won’t lose their valuable voice and perspective entirely.

Confined Space @ TPH: Back in 2003, Jordan Barab launched the blog Confined Space, which brought to the blogosphere a combination of up-to-the-minute news, biting commentary, and ceaseless advocacy for worker health and safety. He raised the visibility of this important issue and served as a valuable resource for workers seeking to improve health and safety conditions at their jobs. His Weekly Toll feature, which culled reports of on-the-job from news sources across the country, made visible the cost of inadequate workplace safeguards - and often won the thanks of the victims’ relatives, who were glad to see that their loved ones were remembered.

Jordan stopped posting at Confined Space in 2007 when he accepted a job with the Committee on Education and Labor in the US House of Representatives – and he left that job in 2009 to become the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. His departure from the blogosphere was a blow to his many loyal readers, although we knew he could accomplish even more good on behalf of workers in his political jobs. The Pump Handle tried to fill at least a small portion of his shoes by adding more occupational health and safety content in the Confined Space vein, which we categorize under the Confined Space @ TPH name. Workplace safety advocate Tammy Miser launched the blog Weekly Toll to ensure that we recognize the human faces behind the workplace tragedies that happen in this country every day.

New Solutions: The Drawing Board: New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a project of the quarterly journal New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy. New Solutions has been committed to highlighting scientists’ research, policy makers’ plans, academics’ understanding, environmentalists’ concerns, unions’ efforts and grievances, and activists’ struggles for 20 years. The Drawing Board offers an active and immediate medium for discussion that the printed version of the journal cannot. It highlights a new article concerning an environmental or occupational health topic once a month, and asks readers to respond with their thoughts and questions.