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Environmental health hazards

Environmental health hazards. Chemical Biological Cultural Physical. Environmental health hazards shaped by:. Level of economic-social development and epidemiological transitions Presence and effectiveness of environmental health regulatory governance

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Environmental health hazards

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  1. Environmental health hazards • Chemical • Biological • Cultural • Physical

  2. Environmental health hazards shaped by: • Level of economic-social development and epidemiological transitions • Presence and effectiveness of environmental health regulatory governance • Risk of exposure – your risk due to choices, behaviors, and vulnerability because of class, race, occupation, age, location • Degree governance adopts a precautionary approach

  3. Level of economic-social development and epidemiological transitions

  4. 2. Presence and effectiveness of environmental health regulatory governance: EPA

  5. Federal laws that pertain to human environment health administered by EPA • National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) • Clean Air Act • Clean Water Act • Safe Drinking Water Act • Toxic Substances Control Act • Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) • CERCLA (Superfund)

  6. Fayette County Environmental Health Office

  7. 3. Environmental risk • Chance of harmful effects to human health resulting from exposure to an environmental hazard.

  8. Degree governance adopts a precautionary approach • Precautionary Principle: • Burden of proof that an environmental hazard is of low risk should rest on those who wish to promote the perceived benefit of the hazard (a new chemical, for example) not on the public agencies enjoined to protect public welfare

  9. The Precautionary Principle in a comparative framework

  10. Adoption of Precautionary Principle varies • EU regulatory regime often portrayed as more precautionary than US • However, adoption is related to the specific risk issue. • For example, EU is more cautious with growth hormones in food, the US is more cautious with fine particulate aerosol air pollution • Adoption can vary as a consequence of political influence • Current changes at the EPA under Trump Administration

  11. Poverty: a major risk factor • WHO (World Health Organization) states that poverty is the world’s greatest killer, through • Disempowerment • Lack of access to health care • Decreased education and lower levels of literacy • Reduced nutrition • Risks from economic disparities shape environmental exposures and access to health care can vary greatly within a single country • Environmental health is inherently concerned with issues of equity and justice.

  12. Environmental justice and environmental racism

  13. 1990

  14. Risk assessment • Process of measuring levels of risk • EPA human health risk assessment • Risk assessment complicated by: • Lab versus field conditions • Complicated exposure history • Contingent nature of science

  15. Scientific versus popular perception of risk • Perception of risk is often based on a person’s • Understanding of technology underlying risk • Extent to which the risk is voluntary • Media coverage of risk

  16. Pollution and environmental health • Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world • In 2015, 16% of all deaths worldwide, more than 15X that of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined • Nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries • In countries at every income level, disease caused by pollution is most prevalent among minorities and the marginalized.

  17. How we view environmental health issues in this class • The environment as interlinked social, cultural, economic, and ecological system • Local – global interactions – these interactions cross scales • Introductory examples: • The origins of HIV, from “The Cell that Started a Pandemic” • Hazardous waste dumping in the film “A Civil Action”

  18. Since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, nearly 78 million people have contracted HIV and close to 39 million have died of AIDS-related causes. Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) existed in monkeys and chimps before passing to humans and becoming HIV

  19. Timeline of HIV-AIDS • SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) enters chimpanzee population through their predation on monkeys • Early 1900’s in Belgian Congo: hunting and consumption of bushmeatleads to spillover of SIV to humans from chimpanzees, where it evolves into HIV • 1920s: HIV travels to small but growing towns in central Africa during period of colonial rule. • Towns have large number of rural men working away from wives and families, HIV begins to spread sexually

  20. Timeline of HIV-AIDS • 1920s-1950s: Hypodermic needles reused in public health campaigns for treatment of tropical diseases. HIV continues to spread. AIDS-like illness not detected because of high background mortality rates • 1950-1960s: Emigration of Haitians to Zaire to take jobs after end of Belgian colonial rule of Congo • 1960s: Haitians return to Haiti due to political change in Zaire (now renamed DRC) • 1969: Plasma industry in Haiti set up by Miami company and sterilization procedures not practiced. Plasma shipped to US and abroad

  21. 1970s-1980s • Sex tourism trade in Haiti leads to dispersal of HIV to major US cities (NYC, SF, LA). • Reports emerging of what would become AIDS in four populations • Gay men • Hemophiliacs • Haitian refugees in Florida • Intravenous drug users • At the close of the 1980s, HIV begins to go global, even returning to Africa

  22. A Civil Action

  23. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) • Public law mandated by Congress and administered by EPA that creates framework for proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste. • Hazardous waste is regulated under Subtitle C of RCRA. • Management is from cradle-to-grave, or final disposal. • Covers rules for hazardous waste producers, transporters, and storage and disposal facilities • Administers permitting requirements, enforcement and corrective action or cleanup. • Focuses only on active and future facilities and does not address abandoned or historical sites,

  24. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) • Also known as Superfund • Established rules concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites • Creates a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries. • Taxes go a trust fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, particularly when no responsible party can be identified

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