The Healthy People 2020 initiative, led by the federal government, has a number of health-related goals, one of which is improving environmental health, in an effort to ensure the program’s long-term viability and success. Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) is a non-governmental organization with a global focus on “responsible consumption and production” and other environmental sustainability initiatives.

Managing Medical Waste Disposal

Blood-borne diseases like HIV and hepatitis C have contributed to the 40-year shift in how the United States handles healthcare solid waste disposal. Medical waste, including needles, washed up on the east coast in the 1980s.

Discarded Medical Supplies

State health and environmental agencies regulate medical waste. Even Nevertheless, there are shared characteristics throughout the various states. For example, sharps containers and red bags are the two most common ways to dispose of medical waste.

Municipal Solid Wastes

Medical and dental offices and hospitals typically store their MSW in either white, clear, or black bags before sending them to landfills or incinerators. Paper and plastics make up 40% of US MSW, according to the EPA.

Consider the Consequences

Everyone—from households to businesses to governments—must do their part to ensure the planet’s long-term viability. Because of the far-reaching effects that pollution and other environmental hazards can have on people’s health and happiness, healthcare providers, especially nurses, have a responsibility to prioritize patient safety and promote environmental stewardship.

High amounts of air pollution can have a number of negative health effects.Heart disease, respiratory infections, and lung cancer, are all at risk because of it. Long-term and short-term exposure to air pollution has been related to detrimental health impacts. Those in poverty, the elderly, and children are more susceptible to more severe impacts. Little PM2.5 particles that enter the pulmonary passageways are the most health-harmful pollutants and are closely linked to excessive early death.

Major Causes of Air Pollution that is Harmful to People’s Health

Some of the main contributors of ambient air pollution that most substantially affect people’s health are inefficient domestic fuel combustion for cooking, lighting, and heating, coal-fired power plants, and agriculture. Moreover, inefficient transportation such as polluting fuels and cars, and garbage burning.

Actions that nations can take to lessen air pollution

Everyone has a duty to fight and lessen air pollution. It is essential to make cooperative action with the active participation of all sectors such as the Government, cities, the general public, and people are all included in this.

Accordingly, we can have the implementation of solid waste management, the provision of access to clean cookstoves and household fuels, the growth of the market for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, and the implementation of industrial emissions reductions are all interventions aimed at reducing air pollution.

Although it may not always be obvious, our surroundings have a profound impact on our health. The balance between a good and unhealthy lifestyle can be tipped by our living conditions, diet, and daily activities. That’s why we need people trained in environmental health, as well as policies and programs to protect public health.

Stability of Air Quality

For humans, the air is a necessity. Though it’s essential to our survival, we don’t always do a good job of keeping it clean, which can have serious consequences for our bodies. Air pollution is connected to SIDS, lung cancer, and COPD. A study found a correlation between low birth weight and air pollution.

Preservation of the World’s Ecosystem

Environmental health experts anticipate a warmer and wetter climate in the next decades, which could initiate or worsen hazards to public health around the world. Increased mosquito populations spread diseases like dengue and malaria to more people in locations where they wouldn’t have survived before climate change.

Promote Environmental Safety and Health

Many environmental health issues, in contrast to food and exercise, cannot be controlled solely by the individual. In order to effectively combat the threat they pose, legislation, policy, and program development at the regional, national, and international levels are typically necessary.

Chemical pollutants can be avoided and lives saved. Environment, biochemical, and air pollution, along with global climate, all pose a threat to and have an adverse effect on our health, according to abundant scientific data.

Healthy Individuals on a Green Planet

Environmentalism could save people and lower the death toll from illnesses. Laws in the EU may lessen environmental damage, and the danger to and effect on human health posed by air pollutants and climate change.

Global Warming and Health

Everywhere around the globe, individuals are starting to notice how climate disaster is affecting their well-being. Taking action to address it can have an instantaneous and considerable positive impact on people’s and the ecosystem’s health. Don’t support money for fossil fuel gas. Fossil energy gasoline is not a gateway technology, because burning it has negative effects on both the environment and human health.

Eliminate Chemicals to Enhance the Health

Pesticides in our foods, drinking, and breathing can disturb our hormone systems, raise our risk of cancer as well as fertility, and damage a child’s well-being. The fact that glyphosate has become the most commonly used insecticide in the world is concerning because of the well-established harm it does to both humans and the environment.

Even if we don’t always realize it, our surroundings have a profound impact on our health. Things like a person’s environment, diet, and daily activities can tip the balance (sometimes quite literally) between health and illness. Environmental health is a branch of public health that looks at mechanical, physiological, and social factors that affect our health but that we can’t always change.

Areas Of Environment that Affects Our Health

Learn more about how the environment might affect our health in the sections below:

Air Quality

Breathing is a necessity for human survival. We can’t live without air and water, but if it’s not kept clean, it can really harm our bodies. Some of the diseases and conditions that have been related to poor air quality are sudden infant death syndrome, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Toxic Substances

Toxicology is the study of the harmful effects of chemicals and other substances on living organisms.

Their environments are a vital part of public health research.

Home and Communities 

Because we spend so much time in these settings, it’s crucial that they be safe. There are few potential hazards, and they promote a healthy way of life. For instance, when crime is high in the area, families may avoid going outside to exercise. 

A recent WHO/Europe report specifically examines the role of the environment in health that focuses on animal-mediated diseases (in which animals serve as “vehicles” for infection). They also discuss the expansion to include some non-communicable conditions, such as those caused by chemicals that may contaminate animal-sourced food and injuries caused by contact with animals, such as bites.

The traditional focus of public health has been on infectious diseases such as zoonoses, illnesses brought on by bacteria resistant to antibiotics, and conditions brought on by contaminated food.

The Different Role of the Environment Affecting One’s Health

As a reservoir

The environment serves as a reservoir where living things and nutrients are carried and accumulated. This includes pathogens, bacterial species and genes for antibiotic resistance, organic and inorganic residues, pesticides, and metals.

As a basis for chemical and ecological processes 

Environmental factors serve as the foundation for chemical and ecological processes that give rise to a wide range of ecosystem services for people, including those necessary for their health. Environmental mechanisms convert chemicals into something highly absorbable by the body and can build up over time. For instance, contaminated food forms in the setting of disease.

Both animals and people can experience good or bad environmental health consequences.

There is actual climate change. And it is having an unthinkable impact on more than just our planet.

It is currently one of the biggest risks to humanity. The environmental and social determinants of health, such as clean air, safe drinking water, enough food, health facilities, and secure shelter, are negatively impacted in addition to rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events.

Negative Effects of Climate Change to Human’s Health

Despite the fact that the effects of climate change on people’s health vary based on their age, race, location, and socioeconomic level, they are nonetheless serious. These are just a few ways that climate change might harm your health. Continue reading to learn more.

Heat-Related Ailment

Our bodies are adept at adjusting to the environment. Our health is negatively impacted by sudden changes in temperature that are up or down those averages. Extreme temperatures, according to studies, have been linked to an increase in fatalities and moderate-to-severe diseases.

Respiratory Illness

Many respiratory ailments, some of which are chronic, are now being caused and made worse by rising air pollution levels.

Water-borne Diseases

Lack of water or flooding brought on by severe weather is already a problem in many regions of the world. Furthermore, diseases brought on by pathogens that are spread by water pose a serious risk to human health and welfare.