UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION OF
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Definition of Environment, Health and Disease
Environmental Problems
Food Borne Diseases
Intervention and Control
AST20211 Environment and Health
What is environment…?
• The sum total of our surroundings,
including all the living and nonliving things with which we interact.
• Living things
• Animals, plants, forests, fungi, etc.
• Nonliving things
• Continents, oceans, clouds, soil, rocks
• Our built environment
• Buildings, human-created living centers
• Social relationships and institutions
• Humans are part of the environment and
are not separate from nature.
• Environmental health affect human heath,
and vice versa
AST20211 Environment and Health
Inner and outer Environment
• The Inner vs Outer Environment
• protective barriers between inner and outer:
• skin
• Gastrointestinal tract (GI tract)
• lungs
• which barrier makes humans most vulnerable?
Why
• problems with this categorization of
“environment”?
Source:
Environmental Health 3rd ed. 2005,
Dade W. Moeller
AST20211 Environment and Health
Inner and outer Environment
• The Personal vs Ambient Environment
• personal = individual control (hygiene, diet, sexual practices,
exercise, use of tobacco, drugs and alcohol, frequency of medicine)
• ambient = outside individual control
• problems with this categorization of environment?
AST20211 Environment and Health
Cancer Caused by Environmental
Exposures
Source:
categorize each above as “personal” or “ambient”
Environmental Health 3rd ed. 2005, Dade W.
Moeller
AST20211 Environment and Health
Defining “Environment”
• The Gaseous, Liquid and Solid Environments
• Each linked with particular routes of exposure to humans
• problems?
Source:
Environmental Health 3rd ed. 2005,
Dade W. Moeller
AST20211 Environment and Health
Defining “Environment”
• The Chemical,