UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

AST20211 Environment and Health

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,