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Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in order to create a healthy environment must be determined. The major sub-disciplines of environmental health are environmental science, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental and occupational medicine.
Air pollution is a concern in British Columbia, Canada because of its effects on health and visibility. Air quality is influenced in British Columbia (BC) by numerous mountain ranges and valleys, which complicate atmospheric pollution dispersion and can lead to high concentrations of pollutants such as particulate matter from wood smoke.
An air quality index (AQI) is an indicator developed by government agencies to communicate to the public how polluted the air currently is or how polluted it is forecast to become. As air pollution levels rise, so does the AQI, along with the associated public health risk. Children, the elderly, and individuals with respiratory or cardiovascular problems are typically the first groups affected by poor air quality. When the AQI is high, governmental bodies generally encourage people to reduce physical activity outdoors, or even avoid going out altogether. When wildfires result in a high AQI, the use of masks such as N95 respirators outdoors and air purifiers incorporating HEPA filters indoors are also encouraged.
Disease burden is the impact of a health problem as measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators. It is often quantified in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Both of these metrics quantify the number of years lost due to disability (YLDs), sometimes also known as years lost due to disease or years lived with disability/disease. One DALY can be thought of as one year of healthy life lost, and the overall disease burden can be thought of as a measure of the gap between current health status and the ideal health status. According to an article published in The Lancet in June 2015, low back pain and major depressive disorder were among the top ten causes of YLDs and were the cause of more health loss than diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma combined. The study based on data from 188 countries, considered to be the largest and most detailed analysis to quantify levels, patterns, and trends in ill health and disability, concluded that "the proportion of disability-adjusted life years due to YLDs increased globally from 21.1% in 1990 to 31.2% in 2013." The environmental burden of disease is defined as the number of DALYs that can be attributed to environmental factors. Similarly, the work-related burden of disease is defined as the number of deaths and DALYs that can be attributed to occupational risk factors to human health. These measures allow for comparison of disease burdens, and have also been used to forecast the possible impacts of health interventions. By 2014 DALYs per head were "40% higher in low-income and middle-income regions."
C. Arden Pope III is an American professor of economics at Brigham Young University and one of the world's foremost experts in environmental science. He received his B.S. from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1978 and his Ph.D. in economics and statistics from Iowa State University in 1981. Although his research includes many papers on topics in the fields in which he was trained—environmental economics, resource economics, and agricultural economics—he is better known for his cross-disciplinary work in environmental epidemiology and public health. He is world-renowned for his seminal work on the effects of particulate air pollution on mortality and health. His articles have helped establish the connection between air pollution and health problems, including cancer, cardiovascular, and pulmonary disease. These research findings have influenced environmental policy in the United States and Europe, contributing to the establishment of emission standards for particulate matter pollution.
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. It is also the contamination of indoor or outdoor surrounding either by chemical activities, physical or biological agents that alters the natural features of the atmosphere. There are many different types of air pollutants, such as gases, particulates, and biological molecules. Air pollution can cause diseases, allergies, and even death to humans; it can also cause harm to other living organisms such as animals and crops, and may damage the natural environment or built environment. Air pollution can be caused by both human activities and natural phenomena.
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials into the atmosphere, causing harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damaging ecosystems. Air pollution can cause health problems including, but not limited to, infections, behavioral changes, cancer, organ failure, and premature death. These health effects are not equally distributed across the U.S population; there are demographic disparities by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and education. Air pollution can derive from natural sources, or anthropogenic sources. Anthropogenic air pollution has affected the United States since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Pollution in California relates to the degree of pollution in the air, water, and land of the state of California. Pollution is defined as the addition of any substance or any form of energy to the environment at a faster rate than it can be dispersed, diluted, decomposed, recycled, or stored in some harmless form. The combination of three main factors are the cause of notable unhealthy levels of air pollution in California: the activities of over 39 million people, a mountainous terrain that traps pollution, and a warm climate that helps form ozone and other pollutants. Eight of the ten cities in the US with the highest year-round concentration of particulate matter between 2013 and 2015 were in California, and seven out of the ten cities in the US with the worst ozone pollution were also in California. Studies show that pollutants prevalent in California are linked to several health issues, including asthma, lung cancer, birth complications, and premature death. In 2016, Bakersfield, California recorded the highest level of airborne pollutants of any city in the United States.
A burn pit is an area of a United States military base in which waste is disposed of by burning.
Air pollution in the United Kingdom has long been considered a significant health issue, and it causes numerous other environmental problems such as damage to buildings, forests, and crops. Many areas, including major cities like London, are found to be significantly and regularly above legal and recommended pollution levels. Air pollution in the UK is a major cause of diseases such as asthma, lung disease, stroke, cancer, and heart disease, and is estimated to cause forty thousand premature deaths each year, which is about 8.3% of deaths, while costing around £40 billion each year.
Research indicates that living in areas of high pollution has serious long term health effects. Living in these areas during childhood and adolescence can lead to diminished mental capacity and an increased risk of brain damage. People of all ages who live in high pollution areas for extended periods place themselves at increased risk of various neurological disorders. Both air pollution and heavy metal pollution have been implicated as having negative effects on central nervous system (CNS) functionality. The ability of pollutants to affect the neurophysiology of individuals after the structure of the CNS has become mostly stabilized is an example of negative neuroplasticity.
Particulates or atmospheric particulate matter are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The term aerosol commonly refers to the particulate/air mixture, as opposed to the particulate matter alone. Sources of particulate matter can be natural or anthropogenic. They have impacts on climate and precipitation that adversely affect human health, in ways additional to direct inhalation.
The Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) is a scale designed in Canada to help understand the impact of air quality on health. It is a health protection tool used to make decisions to reduce short-term exposure to air pollution by adjusting activity levels during increased levels of air pollution. The Air Quality Health Index also provides advice on how to improve air quality by proposing behavioral change to reduce the environmental footprint. This index pays particular attention to people who are sensitive to air pollution. It provides them with advice on how to protect their health during air quality levels associated with low, moderate, high and very high health risks.
The effects of climate change on human health are increasingly well studied and quantified. Direct effects include heat waves and extreme weather events. Indirect effects take place through changes in the biosphere. Examples are changes in water and air quality, food security and displacement. Factors such as age, gender or socioeconomic status influence to what extent these effects become wide-spread risks to human health. Health risks are unevenly distributed across the world. Disadvantaged populations are especially vulnerable to climate change impacts. For example, young children and older people are the most vulnerable to extreme heat.
In the United States about 10% of the population, 33 million people, live within 900 meters of a high traffic road High-traffic roads are commonly identified as being host to more than 50,000 vehicles per day, which is a source of toxic vehicle pollutants. Previous studies have found correlations between exposure to vehicle pollutants and certain diseases such as asthma, lung and heart disease, and cancer among others. Car pollutants include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and toxic air pollutants While these pollutants affect the general health of populations, they are known to also have specific adverse effects on expectant mothers and their fetuses. The purpose of this article is to outline how vehicular pollutants affect the health of expectant mothers and the adverse health effects these exposure have on the adult.
The World Health Organization guidelines were most recently updated in 2021. The guidelines offer guidance about these air pollutants: particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). The WHO first released the air quality guidelines in 1987, then updated them in 1997. The reports provide guidelines intending to give guidelines to reduce the health effects of air pollution.
AirQ+ is a free software for Windows and Linux operating systems developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. The program calculates the magnitude of several health effects associated to exposure to the most relevant air pollutants in a given population. AirQ+ has been used in the BreatheLife campaign and in numerous studies aimed at measuring long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter PM2.5. The first version of the program, AirQ, was distributed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program in 1999, followed by another version of AirQ for Windows in 2000. A substantial difference between AirQ and AirQ+ is that AirQ+ contains a new graphical user interface with several help texts and various features to input and analyse data and illustrate results. AirQ+ version 1.3 was released in October 2018, version 2.0 in November 2019 and version 2.1 in May 2021. It is available in English, French, German and Russian.
Anna Louise Hansell is a British physician who is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hansell studied the relationship between pollution and COVID-19.
Frank J. Kelly is a British professor of community health and policy and Head of the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College London. He is an authority on the medical effects of air pollution.
Particulate pollution is pollution of an environment that consists of particles suspended in some medium. There are three primary forms: atmospheric particulate matter, marine debris, and space debris. Some particles are released directly from a specific source, while others form in chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Particulate pollution can be derived from either natural sources or anthropogenic processes.
References
- ↑ "Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants". gov.uk. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ↑ Date, Will (22 August 2018). "COMEAP updates estimates on UK air pollution deaths". Air Quality News. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ↑ Boseley, Sarah (2 April 2015). "Air pollution may cause more UK deaths than previously thought, say scientists" . Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ↑ Bawden, Tom (30 October 2018). "Scientists confirm for the first time that air pollution causes heart disease and stroke". iNews. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ↑ "Health experts warn of dangers of air pollution". Birmingham Evening Mail (England). 4 May 2001. p. 8.
- ↑ "Air pollution is 'likely' to raise dementia risk, find UK government expert". The Guardian. 27 July 2022. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
- ↑ Finnis, Alex (10 January 2019). "One hour on the tube is as toxic as standing next to a busy road for an entire day". iNews.
- ↑ Oglesby, Kate (12 January 2019). "Dust and air pollution higher on Northern Line than any other part of the Underground". The Times.
- ↑ "Mayor of London issues high pollution alert". Mayor of London. 26 February 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
- ↑ "Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants". gov.uk. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
- ↑ "Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP)". The National Archives. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
- ↑ "Members". Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP). COMEAP. Archived from the original on 15 November 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
