Health and the Environment in the Southeastern United States Rebuilding Unity: Workshop Summary (2002) / Chapter Skim
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2 Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment
2 Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment
Pages 10-18
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From page 10... ...
Changes in society in the past 100 years have caused us to broaden our definition of health, to expand the role of public health, and to recognize the connection between the environment and health. Life expectancy in the United States has increased by nearly 30 years in the last 100 years (Centers for Disase Control and Prevention, 1999a)
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From page 11... ...
High urban density is not invariably associated with negative effects on physical or mental health. People enjoy cities with architecturally diverse three- and four-story buildings that encourage and welcome them to walk around cities such as London and Paris.
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From page 12... ...
Emergency department admissions nationwide have been shown to increase by 40 percent during ozone alert days (Committee of the Environmental and Occupational Health Assembly, 1996~. Despite the obstacles of rapid population growth and decreasing air quality, the behavioral choices we make can positively affect our environment and our health.
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From page 13... ...
Relatively benign disorders include heat syncope, or fainting; heat edema, or swelling; and heat tetany, a result of heat-induced hyperventilation. Heat cramps are muscle spasms that occur after strenuous exertion in a hot environment, and heat exhaustion is a more severe acute illness.
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From page 14... ...
Annual pedestrian fatality rates among major cities in the United States show about 1.9 fatalities per 100,000 people in Philadelphia, 4.6 per 100,000 in San Francisco, and 6.4 per 100,000 in Atlanta (Table 2-1) (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1999~.
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From page 15... ...
, and it also benefits health indirectly, through its effect on body weight. The United States is currently suffering an epidemic of overweight, which has advanced rapidly in the last two decades.
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If road rage reflects the stress that accompanies frequent, long, and difficult commutes on crowded roads, it indicates another manner in which sprawl may threaten both mental and physical health. A helicopter could drop you at any one of 100,000 intersections, and you would have no idea whether you were in Maine or Virginia, or anywhere else in the United States.
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From page 17... ...
How do we approach this set of problems? Those of us in environmental health have spent considerable time over a long period looking at environmental issues in a very narrow way, and at the same time feeling as if the larger environment in which we live is becoming more difficult to control and less connected to human needs.
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From page 18... ...
1 8 HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES tat, and social. Such a holistic effort will enable us to make the connections between health and the environment and to nurture our natural environment, design our built environment, and strengthen our social environment in ways that will promote better health.
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