What is Environmental Health?

It is an area of study in the field of public health that is concerned with accessing and controlling the impacts of humans on their environment and the impact of the environment on humans.  The environment including its vegetation, other animals, and natural and historical landmarks, is a vital tool that has been used as a source of food, shelter, and energy by people for thousands of years.

The human body is an ecosystem made up of around 100 trillion cells but only 10% are actually human.  Other cells are made up of bacteria, fungi, protozoans, anthropoids, and other species.   Complex systems of various organisms maintain symphonic balance and regulate the dangerous ones.  We need to find ways to live in harmony with our environment and fellow travelers.  A publication by Rachel Carson entitled Silent Spring made aware the effects of synthetic chemical toxins in our environment and how they affect our health.

What is Disease?

It’s an abnormal change in the body’s condition that impairs important physical or psychological functions.  Over the past century the average like expectancy has risen by about two-thirds worldwide.  In countries like India, life expectancies nearly tripled.  Mortality data failed to capture the impacts of nonfatal outcomes of disease and injury, such as dementia or blindness.  When people are ill, work isn’t being done, crops are not being planted, meals are not being cooked, and kids can’t study and learn.
Many more years of expected life are lost when a child dies of neonatal tetanus than when an 80 year old dies of pneumonia.  Teens that are permanently paralyzed due to a traffic accident will have more years of suffering and lose potential than will a senior citizen who has a stroke.

There are many ways that our environmental health is impacted whether it is a disease we are born with or catch by contaminated foods, and diseases that we get by coming in contact with someone or something that is infected.  Back in the older days they didn’t have all the antibiotics and drugs we have today to help us get better when we are sick; they put up with it and if it didn’t get better they eventually ended up dying.

The video that I posted is showing us what environmental health is and that what we do to our environment always comes back to affect us. We should treat our environment like we would want to be treated.

~CB