Environmental Health Hazard Pathway

Environmental Health Hazard Pathway

Introduction

The earth's environment currently faces a number of problems. These include rupture of ozone layer, global warming, pollution in water resources and much more. However, it is important to note that there exists a direct relationship between the environmental health and the health of the humans. Therefore, maintaining a healthy environment is the solution to many health hazards (Withers & Hosking, 2002). In a similar context, the under discussion video discusses of how negative impact on the environmental health leads to pathways of various human diseases that are discussed in the figure 1.3.

Discussion

There have been conducted a number of researches that yield the conclusion that majority of the environmental issues are solely to be blamed on the various human activities and practices. The video of “Toxic Town” also emphasizes on this fact. In fact, the video offers practical scenario that further explains the theoretical model of the health hazard pathways. These include the environmental media such as the air, food, water or soil, the Economic factors such as transportation, energy generation or land use, the Physical scale or extent such as regional, local or global, the Settings such as urban/built environment, household, or workplace and ultimately the disease outcomes.

The video of Toxic City explains of how various economic factors, when interact with the environmental medium, can result in various diseases in the settings of human inhabitants up to varying scale. The video explains of how the economic factors, that actually include various human activities, are the basic reasons behind the various health issues that human faces (Jacobson, 2012). This chain or pathway is also in accordance with the figure 1.3 of the module.

The most discussed and blamed economic factor is the Industrialization. Directly and indirectly, this relativity old trend has had a huge impact on the human health and lives (Juhasz, 2011). In fact, the video highlights that according to the federal government there are hundreds and thousands of individuals who are severely exposed to the hazardous material.

The video quotes and mentions the biggest operation of vermiculite in the country that includes moving around 15,000 tons of solid rock per day in order to produce concentrated vermiculite up to a thousand tons. Vermiculite was basically used to make various industrial and household products that include home insulation and potting soil. However, the vermiculite ore consisted of tremolite asbestos, which is a cancer-causing and commercially useless waste product. It was recorded that these fibers would stick in the lungs of people. As a result, of these incidents, the illnesses and the number of deaths grew over time (www.pbs.org).

The video therefore explains of how waste from such commercial procedures would affect the food and water consumed by the humans. This explanation is very similar to the chain or pathways of how the economic factors like industrialization affects the environmental medium like food is also given in the figure 1.3. The food and water are the two most direct sources of transfer of germs ...