 Class MBBS IV

 Course Community Medicine

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

ABDULLAHI SHEIKH
 Environment and health
• The health status of the individual or
community is determined by the interactions
of the internal environment of the himself and
the external environment which surrounds
him.
• The factors that influence the health of the
people will include food, water, housing,
clothing and sanitation.
Cont. …
• Often man is responsible for the pollution of
his environment through urbanization,
industrialization and other human activities.
• In 1972 the UN conference on the Human
Environment focused worldwide attention on
the environmental hazards that threaten
human beings.
Health . ….
• Health depends on resources.
• Good health depends on accessibility to
sustainable resources.
• Bad health results from inaccessibility to
sustainable resources or exposure to a hazard.
• Sustainable resources and hazards exist in the
environment.
• Therefore, quality of health depends on the
environment
What is the Environment?
The trees, air, &
soil around us

ALL the places we live,

work & play

Our fields,
farms & the
food we grow

Our oceans, lakes,

and rivers

6
Definition Environment
• The term environment:
• Can be defined as an aggregate of all the
external conditions influencing and affecting the
life and development of an organism.

• Also it is defined to include all that is external to

the human body.
Cont. ….
• Definition: ‘Environment’
• ‘…[All] that which is external to individual
human host.
• [It] can be divided into physical, biological,
social cultural any or all of which can influence
health status in populations.’ (WHO, 1995)
Cont. ….
• Environmental health is concerned with
assessing, controlling, and improving the
impact people make on their environment and
the impact of the environment on them.

• The field of environmental health is concerned

with all those elements of the environment
that influence people’s health and well-being.
Cont. …
• The health status of the individual or
community is determined by the interactions
of the internal environment of the himself and
the external environment which surrounds
him.
• The factors that influence the health of the
people will include food, water, housing,
clothing and sanitation.
Purpose of environmental health
• The purpose of environmental health
is to create and maintain ecological
conditions that will promote health
and prevent disease.
• One of the essential public health
care element is safe drinking water
and sanitation.
Environmental components
For descriptive purpose, environment has been
divided into three components, all closely related
(i) Physical Water, air, soil, housing, wastes, radiation,
etc.
(ii) Biologic Plant and animal life including bacteria,
viruses, insects, rodents and animals.
(iii) Social Customs, culture, habits, income,
occupation, religion etc.
Environmental Health. ……..

Air Sunlight

Food Noise

Water Soil

The study of how the environment

affects your health.
13
Cont. …
• The key to man's health lies largely in his
environment.
• In fact, much of man's ill-health can be traced
to adverse environmental factors such as
water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution,
poor housing conditions, presence of animal
reservoirs and insect vectors of diseases which
pose a constant threat to man's health.
 Good Things Around Us
Oxygen in
the air Beautiful
scenery to
look at
Nutrients
in food

Family &
Medicine & friends
vitamins

There are many things around us that help

us stay healthy.
15
Environmental sanitation
• The term "environmental sanitation" has been
defined by WHO as "the control of all those
factors in man's physical environment which
exercise or may exercise a deleterious effect
on his physical development, health and
survival".
 MAJOR GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL
CONCERNS

There are major global environmental

concerns now facing the world, including
1. overpopulation,
2. ozone depletion
3. global warming,
4. deforestation,
5. desertification, and
6. inadequate housing,
 Definition:
‘Health Effect…’
• ‘…is the specific damage to health
that an environmental hazard can
cause an individual person.
• Often the same hazard can cause a
range of different effects of different
severity.’
 Environmental problem responders:

1. focus on the health hazard that has been

identified and characterized
2. analyze the environment of the exposed
population to see what controls are needed
and what controls can be implemented to
minimize risk of recurrence and risk of future
occurrence
3. where means of control does not exist, it may
be necessary to invent
 Environmental Problems
1- Water pollution
• Water is such an essential element to
human survival that the available quantity
and quality of water within a community
has become a prime environmental health
issue. Water has many uses other than
consumption by humans.
Cont. ..
• Water can be contaminated and made unsafe for
drinking in many different ways. Three are
discussed here
(1)Water may be infected with bacteria or parasites
that cause disease. Giardia lamblia is a parasite
that enters the water supply through
contamination from human or wild animal feces.
(2)Toxic substances such as pesticides are
introduced by humans into water systems and
constitute another form of water pollution.
Cont. …
• (3) Pollutants may upset the ecosystem,
affecting natural organisms that help purify
water systems.
• Power plants or other industries dissipate
excess heat into lakes and streams and cause
water temperatures to rise.
• This thermal pollution kills off beneficial
organisms in the water.
 2.Inadequate Housing
Housing is of central importance to quality of life.
Ideally, it minimizes disease and injury and
contributes much to physical, mental, and social
well-being.
At least 600 million urban-dwelling people in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America live in life- and
health-threatening homes and neighborhoods.
Most live in overcrowded dwellings, with four or
more persons to a room in tenements, cheap
boarding houses, or shelters built on illegally
occupied or subdivided land
3.Unhealthy or Contaminated Food

• This section describes how the supply of food,

particularly the quality of that food, is affected by
the environment, and
• what health hazards are associated with food.
• Three types of hazardous foods must be considered
when examining food as a possible health problem:
(1)Inherently harmful foods,
(2) contaminated foods,
(3)and foods with toxic additives.
 4.No Waste Disposal
• With the vast amounts of waste produced in the
form of household garbage, human excreta, and
agricultural and industrial byproducts, including
hazardous chemical and radioactive substances,
it is no wonder that waste management and
disposal has become an important and pressing
topic in recent decades
• Solid and hazardous wastes pose a wide range
of public health concerns.
 5.Insect and Rodent
• All human communities are affected by the
insects and rodents living in their environment.
On the least dangerous level,
• The most common vectors are mosquitos, flies,
ticks, roaches, fleas, rats, and mice,
• All of these vectors can serve as reservoirs for
germs then they transmit through physical
contact with humans or by contaminating
human foodstuffs or water.
Any Questions?

27
• THE END