Week 6: Environmental Health
2424 unread replies.2424 replies.
Visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s MyEnvironment site at http://www.epa.gov/myenvironment (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.and enter your city and state, ZIP code, or location into the location box. Explore the site to learn more about your environment and things that might be impacting the health of its citizens.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Identify something new you learned about your environment and how it could be affecting health by completing this statement: “I didn’t know _____.”
How could you, in the role of a community health nurse, address these concerns?
Optional: For more environmental health information, you can also visit the following websites.

Environmental health tracking: http://ephtracking.cdc.gov/InfoByLocation/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Air quality: http://www.airnow.gov/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Toxic release inventory: http://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

Humans interact with the environment constantly. These interactions affect quality of life, years of healthy life lived, and health disparities. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines environment, as it relates to health, as “all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related behaviors.”1 Environmental health consists of preventing or controlling disease, injury, and disability related to the interactions between people and their environment.

The Healthy People 2020 Environmental Health objectives focus on 6 themes, each of which highlights an element of environmental health:

Outdoor air quality
Surface and ground water quality
Toxic substances and hazardous wastes
Homes and communities
Infrastructure and surveillance
Global environmental health
Creating healthy environments can be complex and relies on continuing research to better understand the effects of exposure to environmental hazards on people’s health.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Why Is Environmental Health Important?
Maintaining a healthy environment is central to increasing quality of life and years of healthy life. Globally, 23% of all deaths and 26% of deaths among children under age 5 are due to preventable environmental factors.1 Environmental factors are diverse and far reaching. They include:

Exposure to hazardous substances in the air, water, soil, and food
Natural and technological disasters
Climate change
Occupational hazards
The built environment
Related Topic Areas
Cancer
Heart Disease and Stroke
Occupational Safety and Health
Physical Activity
Respiratory Diseases
Poor environmental quality has its greatest impact on people whose health status is already at risk. Therefore, environmental health must address the societal and environmental factors that increase the likelihood of exposure and disease.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Back to Top

Understanding Environmental Health
The 6 themes of the Environmental Health topic area draw attention to elements of the environment and their linkages to health.

Outdoor Air Quality
Poor air quality is linked to premature death, cancer, and long-term damage to respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Progress has been made to reduce unhealthy air emissions, but in 2008, approximately 127 million people lived in U.S. counties that exceeded national air quality standards.2 Decreasing air pollution is an important step in creating a healthy environment.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Surface and Ground Water
Surface and ground water quality concerns apply to both drinking water and recreational waters. Contamination by infectious agents or chemicals can cause mild to severe illness. Protecting water sources and minimizing exposure to contaminated water sources are important parts of environmental health.

Toxic Substances and Hazardous Wastes
The health effects of toxic substances and hazardous wastes are not yet fully understood. Research to better understand how these exposures may impact health is ongoing. Meanwhile, efforts to reduce exposures continue. Reducing exposure to toxic substances and hazardous wastes is fundamental to environmental health.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Homes and Communities
People spend most of their time at home, work, or school. Some of these environments may expose people to:

Indoor air pollution
Inadequate heating and sanitation
Structural problems
Electrical and fire hazards
Lead-based paint hazards
Learn More
EPA Air Quality Trends Report
American Housing Survey
National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network
Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Healthy Homes
United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Information System
More
These hazards can impact health and safety. Maintaining healthy homes and communities is essential to environmental health.

Infrastructure and Surveillance
Preventing exposure to environmental hazards relies on many partners, including state and local health departments. Personnel, surveillance systems, and education are important resources for investigating and responding to disease, monitoring for hazards, and educating the public. Additional methods and greater capacity to measure and respond to environmental hazards are needed.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Global Environmental Health
Water quality is an important global challenge. Diseases can be reduced by improving water quality and sanitation and increasing access to adequate water and sanitation facilities.

Emerging Issues in Environmental Health
Environmental health is a dynamic and evolving field. While not all complex environmental issues can be predicted, some known emerging issues in the field include:

Climate Change
Climate change is projected to impact sea level, patterns of infectious disease, air quality, and the severity of natural disasters such as floods, droughts, and storms.3, 4

Disaster Preparedness
Preparedness for the environmental impact of natural disasters as well as disasters of human origin includes planning for human health needs and the impact on public infrastructure, such as water and roadways.5

Nanotechnology
The potential impact of nanotechnology is significant and offers possible improvements to:Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Disease prevention, detection, and treatment
Electronics
Clean energy
Manufacturing
Environmental risk assessment
However, nanotechnology may also present unintended health risks or changes to the environment.6

The Built Environment
Features of the built environment appear to impact human health—influencing behaviors, physical activity patterns, social networks, and access to resources.7

Exposure to Unknown Hazards
Every year, hundreds of new chemicals are introduced to the U.S. market. It is presumed that some of these chemicals may present new, unexpected challenges to human health, and their safety should be evaluated prior to release.

These cross-cutting issues are not yet understood well enough to inform the development of systems for measuring and tracking their impact. Further exploration is warranted. The environmental health landscape will continue to evolve and may present opportunities for additional research, analysis, and monitoring.Week6: Environmental Health Essay

Blood Lead Levels
As of 2017, there are approximately 4 million houses or buildings that have children living in them who are potentially being exposed to lead. Nearly half a million U.S. children ages 1 to 5 have blood lead levels at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL), which is currently the reference level at which CDC recommends public health actions be taken. Even blood lead exposure levels as low as 2 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) can affect a child’s cognitive function. Since no safe blood lead level have been identified for children, any exposure should be taken seriously. However, since lead exposure often occurs with no obvious signs or symptoms, it often remains unrecognized. CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program is committed to the Healthy People 2020 goals of eliminating childhood lead exposures and decreasing disparities in the differences in average risk of lead exposure based on race and social class as public health concerns. Week6: Environmental Health