Understanding Environmental Health Paper

Introduction

Environmental health is a discipline of public health that deals with various aspects of conditions, substances and forces in the surrounding of an individual or community, and affects the health and well-being of that individual or population. Some human activities effect the environment leading to climatic changes that have adverse impacts to their health and that of animals. This paper pays high attention to the identification of reasons why environmental is both an individual and global concern.

Reasons why environmental health is an individual concern

Each individual acts as the watchdog of his or her health. Good health enables an individual to have optimum levels of emotional, physical and spiritual functioning, which in the long run gives them the stamina to achieve their life goals and objectives. Poor environment poses a great risk to individuals in terms of diseases and hazards which lead to injuries. Individuals, therefore, have the responsibility of maintaining a healthy environment for their survival and the survival of their future generations (Boylan, 2005).

Reasons why environmental health is a global concern

Environmental pollution by one country does not mean that that single country would experience adverse health. Environmental pollution poses great health threats to the entire world and thus a global concern. For example, emission of greenhouse gases by some countries leads to global warming that affects a wide range of countries. Countries all over the world, therefore, must come together in order to formulate and implement measures of regulating environmental pollution. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is among the bodies that are mandated by member countries to comprehensively assess climatic changes, its causes and strategies of responding to it. In most cases, mitigation and adaptation measures are employed in as a way of reversing climatic changes (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014).

Conclusion

It is, therefore, evident that environmental health is both an individual and global concern. Maintaining a healthy environmental reduces communicable diseases and hazards to the current generation and to the future generation.

References

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (2014). Fifth Assessment Report. Retrieved from http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml

Boylan, M. (2005). Public health policy and ethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.