Environmental Hazards
Environmental health hazards can be physical, chemical, biochemical, psychosocial, or biomechanical. The health threat includes inadequate shelter or sanitation, contamination of food, air, land, and water either through industrial or agricultural methods. The greatest health hazard is altering the air quality that is estimated to result in premature deaths of about two million worldwide in a year. Any reduction in the quantity of air pollution should lead to a decrease in heart diseases, respiratory infections, and lung cancer globally. People should try to find control approaches and strategies that should work out to prevent further damage.
Scientific principal methods
In the past years, research institutions, scientists, and government bodies have relied primarily on the self-regulation system depending on principles and authorized practices for integrity in the research process. Principles that guide scientists have respect for collegiality, knowledge, honesty, openness, and objectivity. The laws work in correlation to necessary scientific elements such as formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, collecting, and interpreting the data.
The main principle used in any potential environmental threat is monitoring and control. This aids in identifying the vital agents, the pathways applied, and the risk population. These considerations act as a guide to approaches used in surveillance and monitoring. The monitoring approach is a routine used to detect changes in health or the environment. The data used can range from sources such as bio-monitoring evidence, environmental data, and inventories of emissions. The health data used can be from routine or clinical monitoring relevant to the exposed population.
Epidemiological research focuses on the distribution and determinants of outcomes of health in a population. It is applied when documenting the link between the effects of health and environmental hazards. Ideally, this approach uses the patterns in real-life diseases and exposures to assess the association between ambient, occupational or accidental disclosure and health results. Epidemiological surveys are often used for research purposes. The periodic reviews are used to provide evidence of the effects of biological uptakes. This approach helps in determining the control levels required to maintain exposure under a specified threshold.
Risk assessment is a scientific approach characterized by procedures used in evaluating and integrating information on exposure and toxicity to project risks on environmental threats to society. The approach aids in creating awareness within the community in terms of particulates, radiation, and chemicals that impact health status. Risk communication is an approach used by scientists in sharing details of environmental risks of health like the waste sites. This approach considers the informed consent by which the study’s participation is made aware of the benefits and dangers used in finding the study. Furthermore, the community uses the scientific approach to help in epidemiologic research and policymaking.
Such assessment often considers the epidemiological and toxicological evidence used in understanding the pathways of exposure biological accumulation and environmental persistence. Meanwhile, the control measures can be implemented through agreements voluntarily, penalties of balance, legal mandate, and encouragement while discouraging excellent or bad practices. Measures protecting the environment like emissions control, licensing, and protection can be put across by individuals or firms.
Ways of determining environmental hazards
Assessment of adverse risk of health effects caused by hazards in the environment is an area that has attracted different research bodies within various disciplines and also the public interests. Researchers use different ways in understanding the health hazards and the danger they cause on population health;
the general consideration is assessing impacts in potential health effects caused by environmental pollutants that are dependent on several issues like; the nature of exposure, hypothesized outcome, and the relationship between response and dose. Also, the susceptibility and variability of the population potentially exposed due to distribution and exposure patterns might influence the risk of disease.
The health outcomes are another way of understanding health hazards. There are various means of classifying a response considered toxic to risk like irreversible or reversible effects, chronic or acute effects, systematic or local consequences, and delayed or immediate results. In environmental epidemiology, the concern centers on chronic low-level exposure, although the excess relative risks related to similar exposures might be minimum.
The nature of exposure revolves around the metabolism and kinetics of substance consumption, distribution, build-up, emission, and biotransformation determined by Vitro and animal studies. Understanding this process and its relevance to humans is essential in assessing the evidence totality on pollution risks to population health. Additional critical issues distract the association of causes, such as the method of assessment used, patterns of exposure characteristics, and the metrics of representing exposure. All these essential methods are necessary for exposure by using various possible routes and media to outline an aggregate level of exposure.
However, various studies have investigated health effects related to restricted, substantial, and potential exposure sources while ignoring other sources. Very few research studies have attempted to assess occupational exposure in non-occupational sources. There are various routes of vulnerability through which pesticides could occur.
Health Risks
There are various hazards to health caused by the environment. Physical risks are substances that harm physical safety, such as explosives, fires, noise, spills, and radiation. These are instances rare to spot as there is no immediate strain or notice that the hazards cause. The short exposure to these substances results in tiredness or fatigue, but the vulnerability can lead to the Musculoskeletal system in the long learn.
Biological hazards result from organisms that might be potentially harmful to humans, and they include pathogenic viruses, parasites, and bacteria, or toxins produced by microorganisms. The biological hazards cause various human diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, and diarrheal ailments. They can result from associating with an infected animal or person, handling infected body fluids or waste, and contacting contaminated waste, foods, or water. Every kind of environment that an individual is exposed to results in contamination in different forms and can result in health risks.
Additionally, chemical hazards are another form of environmental risk hazard. This occurs when an individual is exposed to chemicals that are harmful to the body. Compounds presented are in the way of liquids, solids, or gases. People exposed to chemicals could acquire acute health effects or rapid onset if consumed in large doses and chronic health effects if taken for an extended period in small quantities. The most common chemical hazards are pesticides, drugs, and detergents. The most vulnerable population to the chemical hazards in young children, farmers, and animals within the households. However, anyone can come into contact with chemicals during storage, spraying, or preparation. There are different means by which an individual gets exposed, such as dust, gases, solvents, alkalis, and acids, or through the ingestions of water or food contaminated.
Other hazards include cultural and social risks. Some cultural practices become hazardous when a spirit causes a community belief disease. This can be termed as a form of health hazard. In this case, hygiene and health mobilization interventions can help boost and deal away with practices that harm people. This can occur through promoting attitudes and knowledge.
On the other hand, social hazards include poverty and illiteracy. Society speculates that poor and illiterate people are prone to diseases compared to the wealthier. Other forms of social risks include drug abuse, smoking, and obesity, resulting in mental or physical dissatisfaction that can ultimately lead to chronic illnesses.
The U.S government plays a vital role in managing the incidences of infectious diseases. The people are expected to receive adequate health care from local departments despite the location they live. The community assessment boards should plan for these purposes. It is the role of the government to ensure that public health has adequate infrastructure. They should also promote healthy behaviors in a community as they prevent the spread of diseases, especially communicable conditions. The government should organize and create measures for avoiding environmental hazards. Also, they should hold and prepare response teams towards emergencies to assure a healthy system. Air pollution is the biggest challenge that government agencies face in regulating environmental hazards. Air pollution is considered as the most significant environmental risk by WHO.
To reduce the impacts of environmental hazards, people should understand the hazards while identifying the pathways that affect the environment. The source of hazard results from a source or origin from existing or proposed activities. If we want to prevent the hazards, we should identify and understand the causes, the type, the pathway, and the response towards the hazard.
References
Abdel-Shafy, H. I., & Mansour, M. S. (2016). A review on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: source, environmental impact, human health, and remediation. Egyptian Journal of petroleum, 25(1), 107-123.
Babayemi, J. O., Ogundiran, M. B., & Osibanjo, O. (2016). Overview of environmental hazards and health effects of pollution in developing countries: a case study of Nigeria. Environmental Quality Management, 26(1), 51-71.
Neo, J. P. S., & Tan, B. H. (2017). The use of animals as a surveillance tool for monitoring environmental health hazards, human health hazards and bioterrorism. Veterinary microbiology, 203, 40-48.
Smith, K. (2013). Environmental hazards: assessing risk and reducing disaster. Routledge.
Philp, R. B. (2013). Ecosystems and human health: toxicology and environmental hazards. Crc Press.