Environmental Hazards and Human Health

1. Environment: combination of physical, chemical, and biological factors. Hazard: anything that can cause injury, death, disease, damage to personal/public property, or deterioration or destruction of environmental components. Risk: probability of suffering a loss as a result of exposure to a hazard. Environmental Hazards and Human Health

2. Risk Perception • Origin (natural vs manmade) • Volition (voluntary vs imposed) • Effect Manifestation (immediate vs delayed) • Controllability (controlled vs chaotic) • Benefit (defined vs unclear) • Familiarity (experienced vs new) • Exposure (frequent vs occasional vs rare) • Necessity (true need vs luxury)

3. Causes of Human Mortality

4. Environmental Hazards • Cultural Hazards • Consequence of choice • Risky behavior • Biological Hazards • Animal attacks • Infectious disease • Physical Hazards • Natural disaster • Prevention by avoidance • Chemical Hazards • Manmade chemicals • Carcinogens (cause mutations, cancer)

5. To what cultural hazards do college students commonly subject themselves?

6. Cultural Hazards

7. Smoking-related Diseases

8. Regulation Of Smoking • Warning labels • Smoke-free zones in public places • FDA regulations • Lawsuits against the tobacco industry Click the Death Clock to Calculate you estimated time of departure time

9. Infectious Diseases • Pathogenic bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoans, worms • More prevalent in but not exclusive to developing countries • Crowding increases disease spread • Contamination of food and water • Lack of resources for sanitation • Lack of education • Climates for transmission of vector-borne diseases like malaria

10. Malarial Parasite Life Cycle

11. Worldwide Distribution of Malaria

12. Physical Hazards • Natural disasters, e.g., tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires • Avoidance of risk important in prevention, e.g., building homes in flood plains, and living on the coast. • Not all disasters can be avoided

13. Chemical Hazards • Result of industrialization • Exposure through ingestion, inhalation, absorption through skin. • direct use vs accidental • Air, food,& water • Many chemicals are toxic at low levels • 74 chemicals are known to be carcinogenic

14. The Role of Poverty • No money for health insurance. • Higher probability of exposure to environmental hazards.

15. Environmental Health • Factors contributing to the environmental health of a nation include: • Education • Nutrition • Commitment from government • More equitable distribution of wealth

16. Risk Analysis • The process of evaluating the risks associated with a particular hazard before taking some action for its management. • 4 steps to EPA risk analysis. • Hazard assessment (What chemicals cause cancer)? • Dose-response assessment (how much)? • Exposure assessment (how long)? • Risk characterization (how many will die)?

17. Risk Assessment/Management • Usually involves: • Cost-benefit analysis • Risk-benefit analysis • Public preferences • Some suggest we use distributive justice in making decisions about risk • Ethical process of making certain that everyone receives proper consideration • Should reduce environmental racism/injustice

18. Risk Assessment/Management • Not a perfect system • Precautionary principle • Lack of certainty should not be used as a reason for preventing environmental degradation/hazards