ECU Professor to study bioterrorism in China

An East Carolina University environmental health professor will visit China this week to gain an international perspective on the burgeoning threat of bioterrorism.

Alice Anderson, who teaches in ECU’s College of Health and Human Performance, said she will share the information with students and ECU’s new Center for Security Studies.

“Energy security, maritime issues, and radiation security in arms control are all parts of the agenda at this conference, taught by Chinese scholars and government experts,” Anderson said. “These topics all involve an environmental health component, and I will be learning how another country with such a huge population looks at ways to protect their citizens from threats to human health via bioterrorist acts.”

Anderson is attending the Workshop on China’s Perspective on Global Security at China Foreign Affairs University with the help of ECU’s Center for Security Studies. The conference will examine emerging security issues, disease control, transnational crime and international policy issues. Anderson, who is a member of a Centers for Disease Control Taskforce for leadership in all hazards-response, plans to take what she learns in both China and an upcoming CDC conference in Louisville, Ky., to enhance the multidisciplinary continuing education curriculum now in the works.

“I am extremely excited to be representing the ECU Security Studies and Research Center on this mission to learn non-traditional ways of managing threats to human health and well-being,” she said.

Technology permitting, Anderson plans to post a web log. Please click here for occasional dispatches from China.