According to the World Health Organization 13 million lives could be saved yearly by making the environment healthier and one-third of diseases affecting children under five are caused by environmental factors. People working in the environmental health field attempt to alleviate these statistics.
Brief Definition
Environmental health is a field within public health that is based on the effect of the environment on human health. When defining environmental health, there are three different environments that are considered. The first is the natural environment which is considered to be the air we breathe, the ambient water, and the soil. The second is the man-made environment which consists of the physical surrounding of the places we frequent like work, home, and school. The third is the social environment which is loosely defined as how we use our environment and how our use of the environment affects.
The Changing Environment and Human Health
The environment we interact in imparts many factors that cause diseases. The most studied and researched diseases in developed nation's environmental health programs are those diseases that are caused by genetic changes that are suspected to be brought about by changing environmental influences. These diseases like Parkinson’s, diseases related to lung function development like asthma and certain forms of cancer are suspected to be a result of the changing levels of toxins in the ambient air or water. On a global scale, there is evidence that suggests that human activities are causing climate change. Climate change or global warming is leading to an increase in extreme weather events that are affecting human life by causing more weather related deaths and affecting distribution patterns of vector borne diseases such as malaria.
Example of Environmental Health Issues
Researchers in the environmental health field determined that lead exposure even at low levels in children was resulting in severe health effects, such as damage to the nervous system and anemia. Lead was found in the paint chips from old buildings leading to safer renovation techniques and also in some children's toys prompting toy recalls. Environmental health researchers are currently working on determining the effect that mobile phones have on human health; mainly the health effect of the radiofrequency fields. Mobile phones are used by an unprecedented number of people globally. Researchers are also working on ways to ensure that clean and safe drinking water is available during emergency situations and making sure that people have access to sanitation facilities and use good hygienic behavior.
Determining Hazards
People who work in Environmental health work to identify, reduce or remove environmental hazards. The normal steps to do so include first, recognizing the hazards or potential hazard. These hazards can be chemical like pollutants in the air or drinking water. The can be physical, ergonomic or can also be of biological in origin. After identifying the hazard, researchers in environmental health work to determine risk factors associated with hazard. These studies have reveled some key information relating skin cancer to ultraviolet radiation (UV) and lung cancer to cigarette smoke. After the risks have been quantified the hazard needs to be controlled, by controlling the air quality, waste management, housing quality and vectors.