The East Asia region is a vibrant and challenging part of the world when it comes to public health issues, with its diverse economies, ethnicity, cultures, and geographical and geological features. It covers about 12 million km ² or about 28% of the Asian continent and is about 15% bigger than Europe. More than 1.5 billion people or about 38% of the Asian population live in East Asia. The region is one of the world's most populated places, with a population density of 133 inhabitants per km ². While communicable diseases still plague the less developed nations of East Asia, noncommunicable diseases are predominant in the more developed nations and are also making their presence in the developing nations. Besides being threatened by environmental pollution from its rapid pace of urbanization and industrialization, it is also an area prone to natural disasters like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, and floods. Therefore, not only human lives are at stake, but also the ecosystems, natural resources, and properties are. These issues are multidisciplinary in nature and require a multipronged approach. Environmental epidemiology is such an approach that assesses and evaluates a public health problem from various angles and perspectives to derive a scientifically sound decision-making process. The outcomes of good environmental epidemiology should feed into sound risk management and risk communication practices for the protection of human health and safety.

This special issue focuses on addressing the public health challenges in the East Asia region and the application of sound environmental epidemiology as an assessment and decision-making tool. We invite authors to submit original research as well as review articles to this special issue.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Communicable disease associated with the environment
• Air pollution from urban and industrial sources
• Water quality
• Occupational safety and health
• Food safety and public health
• Traffic health
• Renewable energy
• Climate change
• Environmental factors related to mental health problems