What is Environmental Health?

What is Environmental Health?

  What is the first thing you think when you hear 'environment'?

         You maybe think of trees, plants, animals, or even recycling.  These are many factors that are all part of the environment or have an impact on the way the environment works together.  Based on the definition from Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the environment is "the conditions that surround someone or something."  Although you may have thought of more specific things when thinking about the environment, everything that you thought of is a part of our environment.  So basically, the environment is everything around us at any given time.

  What do you think when you hear the word 'health'?

          The first thing I think of is being sick, going to the doctor, and taking care of my body.  There are things that go into keeping your body as productive as possible, wether it be exercising or taking vitamins everyday.  Although none of these are wrong, Merriam-Webster Dictionary defined health as "the overall condition of someone's body or mind."  This definition includes everything that you could think of related to the physical or emotional health of your body.

   How do we relate the environment to health?

          After defining those two separate words, we may have a better understanding of what environmental health is when we combine their meanings.  Just to remind us, environment is what surrounds someone or something, and health is the physical or mental state or an individual.  Environmental health deals with how the environment affects the health of those that live in that environment, and how those living in that area affect the environment.  This idea of environmental health isn't a one way street, people change the way the environment works, and the environment changes how people live.  The study of environmental health examines how both people and the environment are able function together.  Overall, those that study this topic are trying to find the best way to allow us as humans to take care of the environment around us.  They are also studying how to prevent any further damage of the environment that could affect the health of future generations.

Sources:
     National Library of Medicine:
          http://kidsenvirohealth.nlm.nih.gov/generic/11/what-is-environmental-health
     Health, Environment, & Work:
          http://www.agius.com/hew/resource/envhlth.htm
     World Health Organization:
          http://www.who.int/topics/environmental_health/en/
     Merriam-Webster Dictionary
          http://www.merriam-webster.com