Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment A New Vision of Environmental Health for the 21st Century (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Human Health and the Social Environment
Human Health and the Social Environment
Pages 28-40
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From page 28... ...
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENT, AND HEALTH At this time, our ability to deliver public health or environmental quality is being overtaxed, said Nicholas Ashford of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Part of our inability lies in the fact that science is increasingly ur~covering problems that we never thought existed, such as endocrine disruption or lowlevel chemical exposure associated with behavioral problems.
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From page 29... ...
Industries that have a technological fix and a narrow view are not capable of displacing themselves in the significant ways needed to achieve sustainable development. Who is going to give us the pollution control device—the pollution control industry, which constitutes half of the environmental export industry in this country?
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From page 30... ...
30 REBUILDING THE UNII~YOF HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT BOX 5 1 ~ :Sustdin,able~2Busines,s, Ec'on, o~r,'~and Health ,~ i, ,~ is, ~:~ it, ~ ,~ :- if,- : ':, ,~'; -I- ~~ :~ ~ -'I' Abase- ' dy '':~'- 'I: ~''~ I Abe ~~s~s~ :-: Mighty ~ have declined over- :tim : as ~ it 'shims' ' =m,1: ,m,lihon,~p-=, ~ ' ' ' t' ii' he' :' i' 1f : ill I'' ou: ' :' Amp, h4,3, ~~;~waste~atrEt emissions were reduced | ~~'~ : ~ .~ ~ .
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From page 31... ...
During the 1960s, Jersey City underwent what was called "urban renewal," which basically meant knocking down housing and filling in with chromium slag, reported Thomas Burke of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In the 1 980s, the city realized that it had an environmental hazard on its hands, in addition to rampant drug abuse.
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From page 32... ...
They found that inadequacy of health care accounts for about 10 percent of premature mortality, genetics for about 20 percent, environment for about 20 percent, and health behaviors and life-style TABLE 5.1 Factors Contributing to Premature Mortality Factor Percent Health care system Genetics aIld inherited factors Environment Health behaviors and life-style 10 20 30 50 The Whitehall studies, which began in the 1960s, grew out of a productive working relationship with the British Civil Service. Involving a large number of colleagues at UCL and other institutions, the study was of great importance in demonstrating the relation between aspects of life-style, biological risk factors, and subsequent disease.
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From page 33... ...
Poorer neighborhoods tend to have fewer doctors and pharmacies; inadequate transportation, lack of safe and convenient recreational facilities; and low availability of affordable, healthy food. So even if an individual is motivated to be healthy, it is harder if he or she lives in a poorer area.
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From page 34... ...
These issues speak to the role of nonregulatory communities in addressing environmental health, suggesting not only that greater empowerment of community groups might help through the changes they achieve in the physical environment, but also that the very process may be beneficial to health through increasing collective efficacy, building social capital, and enhancing the social environment. The health effects associated with this process might be equal to or perhaps even greater than those associated with the outcome.
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From page 35... ...
If the entire population started maintaining its weight today, rather than gaining weight with age and time, we could arrest many of the comorb~dities associated with the obesity epidemic. Despite the fact that physical activity may not contribute substantially to weight reduction, the promotion of physical activity alone may have an impact on chronic diseases independent of any effect on weight.
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From page 37... ...
HUMAN HEALTH AND THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 1993 `~ ~ ^- ' 1 998 37 reveals how the impact of humans in terms of overgrazing, or misuse of water—led to abandonment of the sites of early civilization. This history teaches us that the globalization of the earth is just in its infancy, said Donald Conroy, president of the International Consortium on Religion and Ecology.
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From page 38... ...
This approach emphasizes the value of venous noninvasive therapeutic methods, including diet and nutrition; includes holistic types of body, mind, and soul techniques for curing; views healing within the context of community and family; and is more open to a perspective in which life and death are seen as part of a natural ecological cycle of birth and regeneration. It also relies on nonmechanistic and noninclusive methods of diagnosis, including a greater emphasis on the patient's own story and cultural habits.
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From page 39... ...
Second, they are working to revolutionize how we build college campuses, constructing buildings that emit no waste products, use solar power, locate materials from sources certified as sustainably managed and sustainably harvested, and develop fabrics that are compostable and free of carcinogens. A third revolution continues in terms of investments and how colleges buy, purchase, and exert financial power in the world.
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From page 40... ...
operations, which 0 t- I: -fain: ,r~u~r,.,es .~ers2'n' diverge fields took ' ~ WQ~ ~ ~ ; ~ :: ~ it:: ~:~ -: : Design, as McDonough, Lovins, and others are defining it, begins by seeing nature as the standard for what humans do: how we farm, how we build, how we work, and how we live. They see civilization as being powered by contemporary sunlight, not ancient sunlight stored as fossil filial.
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