2/15/2023

Assignment 1
Environmental and Occupational
Health

California State University of San Bernardino

Christina Marquez
Spring MPH Program: HSCI 6230
Professor Swat Kethireddy
 Environmental health hazards are chemicals, artificial toxins/pollutants, natural
disasters influenced by climate change, improper waste disposal, and anything that can
affect/ disrupt a population's quality of life or biological process. In the 21st century,
there is a realization that even an oil spill or nuclear contamination in our ocean can
affect our food, water supply, and health around many countries involving a
considerable part of the population. Actions like deposing chemicals or non-
biodegradable can harm our soil and water supply. Clean water is essential to everyone
worldwide, with a high percentage still in need; according to the WHO, around 1 in 3
people globally do not have clean, safe drinking water. Environmental health hazard has
a more significant impact in developing counties considering adopting policies related to
public health. Unfortunately, lower-income areas are the most affected by these
exposures due to social injustice reducing many people's life expectancy. This article
mentions a few of the United Nations' sustainable development goals: sanitation and
safe drinking water is essential because metals (lead) and bacteria (cholera), and
without access to medication or treatment, diarrhea and vomiting can cause premature
death in children/adults. Another goal is to have an impact and reverse; global climate
change has increased the severity of floods, hurricanes, droughts, snowstorms,
earthquakes, and heat waves. This impacts to land and agriculture water quality and
increases the risk of diseases like malaria.

Occupational health is essential because work conditions can impact a person's

health due to hours spent on a job site. Depending on the work environment, conditions
can be different from person to person. Work-related injuries can be caused by fast or
prolonged repetitive movements: carpal tunnel, broken leg, or cutting a hand with a
knife by accident in the kitchen. Most are preventable with proper training; however,
some are just accidental. Work-related illnesses can be chronic and caused over time or
exposure to dangerous amounts of horrible air quality/noise and toxic chemicals.
Usually causes a person to develop hearing loss, cancer, lung damage, or a more
significant disability. An example is using a long-time pesticide like round-off causes
cancer. Another example of getting cancer through installing asphalt roofing fumes
release toxins due to heating (NJ.gov). Preventive strategies depending on the
occupation, are proper equipment training, increased supervision by
supervisors/managers, enforcement of write-ups for a worker not complying with safety
rules, and higher fines for companies not respecting the safety of workers. In 1946 the
WHO decided to place a goal to improve the workplace, and when the U.S. and other
places complied, the CDC said a reduction in deaths or other work-related incidences
by 1997 was around 90 percent (Tulchinsky, T. H, pg.516). Laws are created to protect
workers every day; some examples of laws passed are the Federal Mine Safety Act,
Clean Air Act, and Occupation Safety and Health Act. The two agencies created out of
the Occupational Safety and Health Act were OSHA and NIOSH. They work closely with
the U.S. Department of Labor to make laws from research/scientific evidence collected
and enforced within the job sites. (Tulchinsky, T. H, pg.520)

In healthy communities, a goal should be to have healthy people for a

more productive and efficient society. Healthy individuals can take care of the elderly
and those living with disabilities. However, in particular, job sites or home/town
environments daily exposure can increase heart disease, cancer, and other premature
deaths underlying diseases. The chemicals used in an occupation or created in a plant
facility can be released by accident due to natural disasters. It can be released into the
environment causing 10 percent of congenital disabilities to have an impact on creating
healthy communities (Tulchinsky, T. H, pg508). Also, family members working in their
work environment can take home these metals or toxins in materials in their clothing,
potentially harming children, seniors, and other adults. For example, lead; lead is in the
dirt, construction sites digging up dirt can bring it up to air, or workers removing old paint
can be in their clothing. Investing money into educating and notifying the public can
help prevent some of these exposures. Another occupational exposure to the
environment is air pollution; many job sites release toxic pollutants, and people who live
next to these factories or even employees are exposed daily. Thanks to the Clean Air
Act, there has been a reduction and regulation placed on the number of pollutants
released into the environment. The evidence was not made up from one day to another
data was collected by NHANES measured samples of the toxins in people's blood,
urine, breast milk, and saliva of levels of exposure (Tulchinsky, T. H, 508). This
significant scientific evidence supports that occupational hazards can enter the homes
and affect the environment we play, eat, and live daily.

Environmental health is a significant focus in public health because the evidence

supports that most diseases and death can be prevented. Proper access to food,
medication, sanitation facilities, clean drinking water, education, health care, and social
equality can reduce premature deaths/ migration from homes. Many people every day
are forced to leave their homes every year due to climate change or terrorism. Around
103 million people/children who are either refugees, asylum seekers, migrating, or
displaced are usually without access to essential items to survive (UNHCR). Global
issues for environmental health can be improper waste disposal, wars, terrorism,
pandemics, usage of non-renewable resources, overfishing, and social injustice. Rural
areas suffer from migration to urban areas with larger populations which causes a need
for more resources creating land degradation. Migration causes overpopulated regions
that can be a problem with waste disposal, food disparities, an increase in diseases,
and sanitation issues ( Tulchinsky, T. H, 474). During the pandemic, areas more
populated around the world, like New York, were affected faster by Covid-19. The
higher population is creating waste disposal to be shipped to landfills in areas around
the world, ruining their soil, water, and land with unbiodegradable materials (plastic).
Many countries that support the WHO recommendations are trying to reduce waste and
support using/reducing materials that do not harm the environment to minimize the
effects of the ozone, ecosystem, and global warming (Tulchinsky, T. H, pg. 477).
 Resources

New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. (2007). Hazardous Sub
substance Fact Sheet. Asphalt.
https://www.nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0170.pdf.

Tulchinsky, T. H., & Varavikova, E. A. (2014). Environmental and Occupational

Health. The New Public Health, 471–533.  Doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-415766-
8.00009-4

UNHCR. ( 2023) . Refugee Data Finder. Welcome to UNHCRs Refugee Population

Statistics Database. https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/.

World Health Organization. (2023). 1 in 3 people globally do not have access to safe
drinking water. https://www.who.int/news/item/18-06-2019-1-in-3-people-globally-do-
not-have-access-to-safe-drinking-water-unicef-who.