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community health lecture notes, Exams of Community Health

community health lecture notes

Typology: Exams

2022/2023

Uploaded on 06/29/2025

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Environmental Health
Objectives
Explain how the environment influences human health and disease.
Describe legislative and regulatory policies that have influenced the effect of the environment on health and disease pattern.
What is Environmental Health?
The study of environment-related illnesses or disorders and their prevention.
The segment of Public Health that is concerned with assessing, understanding, and controlling the impacts of one’s
environment on an individual’s health and on a population’s health.
Historical Context
Florence Nightingale
Environment influences health and recover form illness. First one to consider environmental influences.
Soldiers need to be in contained units. Need fresh water, fresh air (Crimean War).
Lillian Wald
Coined the term ‘Public Health Nurse’
Moved into the ‘Henry Street Settlement’, lived and worked among the industrial poor, she and her colleagues offered health
care to area residents in their homes on a sliding fee scale
http://www.henrystreet.org/about/history/
What is different about today’s environment compared to a century ago?
Clean water, clean air, more regulated
The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996
Added new provisions related to protection of infants and children from pesticide exposure from multiple sources. The law
established a health-based standard of reasonable certainty of "no harm" that prohibits taking into account economic
considerations when children are at risk.
Because crop dusters fly over farms and that adds pesticides to food. Affects illness.
Environmental Influences to Health
Biological
Disease organisms in water and food
Insect and animal allergens
Chemical
Air pollutants, industrial chemicals, agricultural chemicals, toxic wastes, VOCs (volatile organic compounds), food additives
Are the organic foods really organic? China-air pollutant
Physical
Noise, radiation
Geiger-measures amount of radiation exposed to every month for working in hospital
Socioeconomic
Safe neighborhoods, adequate health care
Do people have adequate transportation, do they have doctor’s offices, etc.
Environmental Health
Diet
Exercise
Sun exposure
Worry about farmers, gingers, people who don’t use sunscreen
Water quality (microbiological and chemical)
Tobacco use
Medicines and medical procedures
Infections
Consumer products
Air quality (indoor and outdoor; biological contamination)
Alcohol use
Radiation (ionizing, ultraviolet)
Environmental contamination
Occupational exposures
Fields of Study in Environmental Health:
Epidemiology
Toxicology
Workplace safety/Industrial Hygiene
Air quality control/Indoor Air Quality
Nutrition and food safety
Drinking water quality
Liquid and solid waste disposal
Rodent and insect vector control
Radiation safety
Disaster Preparedness and Response
Risk Assessment
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- Environmental Health

  • Objectives
    • Explain how the environment influences human health and disease.
    • Describe legislative and regulatory policies that have influenced the effect of the environment on health and disease pattern.
  • What is Environmental Health? - The study of environment-related illnesses or disorders and their prevention. - The segment of Public Health that is concerned with assessing, understanding, and controlling the impacts of one’s environment on an individual’s health and on a population’s health.
  • Historical Context
    • Florence Nightingale
      • Environment influences health and recover form illness. First one to consider environmental influences.
      • Soldiers need to be in contained units. Need fresh water, fresh air (Crimean War).
    • Lillian Wald
      • Coined the term ‘Public Health Nurse’
      • Moved into the ‘Henry Street Settlement’, lived and worked among the industrial poor, she and her colleagues offered health care to area residents in their homes on a sliding fee scale
      • http://www.henrystreet.org/about/history/
    • What is different about today’s environment compared to a century ago?
      • Clean water, clean air, more regulated
    • The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996
      • Added new provisions related to protection of infants and children from pesticide exposure from multiple sources. The law established a health-based standard of reasonable certainty of "no harm" that prohibits taking into account economic considerations when children are at risk.
      • Because crop dusters fly over farms and that adds pesticides to food. Affects illness.
  • Environmental Influences to Health
    • Biological
      • Disease organisms in water and food
      • Insect and animal allergens
    • Chemical
      • Air pollutants, industrial chemicals, agricultural chemicals, toxic wastes, VOCs (volatile organic compounds), food additives
        • Are the organic foods really organic? China-air pollutant
    • Physical
      • Noise, radiation
        • Geiger-measures amount of radiation exposed to every month for working in hospital
    • Socioeconomic
      • Safe neighborhoods, adequate health care
        • Do people have adequate transportation, do they have doctor’s offices, etc.
  • Environmental Health
    • Diet
    • Exercise
    • Sun exposure
      • Worry about farmers, gingers, people who don’t use sunscreen
    • Water quality (microbiological and chemical)
    • Tobacco use
    • Medicines and medical procedures
    • Infections
    • Consumer products
    • Air quality (indoor and outdoor; biological contamination)
    • Alcohol use
    • Radiation (ionizing, ultraviolet)
    • Environmental contamination
    • Occupational exposures
  • Fields of Study in Environmental Health:
    • Epidemiology
    • Toxicology
  • Workplace safety/Industrial Hygiene
    • Air quality control/Indoor Air Quality
    • Nutrition and food safety
    • Drinking water quality
    • Liquid and solid waste disposal
    • Rodent and insect vector control
    • Radiation safety
    • Disaster Preparedness and Response
    • Risk Assessment
  • Environmental Health Sciences
    • Book includes:
      • Toxicology
      • Epidemiology (refer to Dr. D’s presentation)
      • Multidisciplinary Approaches
  • Toxicology-Causal mechanisms between exposure and disease
    • Negative effects of chemical exposures
    • Timing-In utero?
      • Zika-Olympics
    • How does chemicals enter our body?
      • Inhalation
      • Ingestion
      • Dermal absorption
        • Be careful taking dermal patch off. If you’re pregnant some drugs can absorb and cause you to abort.
      • Across placental barrier
      • Who is at more risk?
      • Children (poverty, lack of access, immature immune systems)
      • Immune compromised.
  • The most basic tenant of toxicology: The dose makes the poison. All substances are poisons; there is none of which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.” Paracelsus (1493-1541)
  • Water can cause intoxication if you drink too much of it. So the dose makes it poison. Same with radiation.
    • Example:
      • Is Tylenol toxic?
        • Can damage your liver if you take too much.
      • Is exposure to pesticides toxic?
        • What if exposed throughout your lifetime?
  • Possible Models to Approach Environmental Health
    • Exposure media
      • Air, water, food, others
        • Lead, paint in old homes, water
    • Locations
      • Home, workplace, living community, schools
    • People
      • Adults, children, elderly, gender
    • Hazards
      • Physical, chemical, biological
  • Multidisciplinary Approaches
    • Geologists, Chemists, Meteorologists, Nurses
      • Geology: Rocks, digging in earth. Can affect water sources.
      • Meteorologists: Air pollution, toxic rain, heat index, UV index
      • Nurse: At health department, need to work with these two
    • Team based approach is needed to assess and decrease environmental health exposure.
  • Environmental Health Assessment - See How to box on page 94. - Assessment (Have you ever been exposed to radiation?) - Diagnosis - Goal Setting - Planning - Interventions - Evaluation AIR (point-fixed sites vs nonpoint sources-nonfixed) - Water - Land - Food
  • ******I PREPARE** pg. 95
    • I
    • P
    • R
    • E
    • P
    • A
    • R
    • E
  • Investigate potential exposures
  • Present work
    • Not on test
  • Reducing Environmental Health Risk
    • Focus on Prevention
    • Three R’s
      • Reduce
      • Reuse
      • Recycle
    • Disposal
      • Incineration (burning)->ash, air emissions
      • Water discharge-must treat water
      • Landfilling-must use liners to prevent seepage into soil
        • Pouring Chromium in without liner will make it seep out
          • What about Secondary (screen for exposure)
          • Tertiary (prevent complications from exposure)
  • Advocacy
    • Write letters
    • Facebook
    • Credible source of information at community gatherings
    • Volunteer local, state, federal commissions
    • Ask questions “is this information complete and accurate”
  • Role for Nurses in Environmental Health
    • Community involvement and public participation
    • Individual and population risk assessment
      • (Environmental Health Assessment)-”Have you ever been exposed to …..”
    • Risk communication
      • Let people know what’s in area
    • Epidemiological investigations
      • Mumps outbreak-environmental health concern
    • Policy development