Environmental Health

Environmental Health: A Guide to Understanding It

What Is Environmental Health?

Environmental health is the branch of public health that focuses on the relationship between the environment and human health. It examines environmental factors that can affect health, such as air quality, water quality, land use, and climate change. Environmental health professionals work to identify, evaluate, and control these hazards to protect human health.

Environmental health is a multidisciplinary field that draws on a variety of disciplines, including epidemiology, toxicology, environmental science, and public health. Environmental health professionals use a variety of tools and techniques to assess environmental hazards and develop strategies to protect human health. These tools and techniques include:

• Epidemiological studies to identify environmental hazards that are associated with human health problems.
• Toxicological studies to determine the health effects of environmental hazards.
• Environmental monitoring to measure the levels of environmental hazards in the environment.
• Risk assessment to evaluate the potential health risks of environmental hazards.
• Intervention studies to develop and evaluate strategies to protect human health from environmental hazards.

By understanding environmental health, we can take steps to protect ourselves from the harmful effects of environmental hazards. We can also make choices that will help to create a healthier environment for future generations.