Introduction to EH (1) Flashcards
Types of environmental stressors
chemical, biological, physical, social, psychosocial
Early origins of EH
Egypt (evidence of lung disease in mummies)
Rome (factory smoke)
England (coal burning)
How did the industrial revolution change environmental health?
move of populations to urban centers, mass production (industrial emissions), clean drinking water resources stressed
Who is John Snow?
his work tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854 gave focus to health related to extreme events and occupational exposures
Occupational exposure examples
coal worker pneumoconiosis, radium girls, mercury and felt curing, locomotive workers and asbestos, farmers and pesticides
What is Silent Spring?
Book written by Rachel Carson focused on harmful effects of DDT in birds
Led to ban of DDT
Shifted focus of environmental health to chemical hazards and toxicities
Emerging issues from reconsideration of scale
Urbanization/globalization, economic growth and sustainability, climate change
Emerging trends in EH
Birth of exposure science, and origin of the ‘exposome’
Strengths of environmental epi
- on a population level, can measure associations between exposures and a study group
- This is important bc it looks as the true impact in real world settings
- The relative risks associated w environmental exposures are relatively small so we need to look at populations because the attributable risks are great
Strengths of toxicology
- Can look at a mechanistic, or direct causal, link
- Because toxicology is a controlled discipline
- You can control the factors that can be linked to outcomes
Strengths and weaknesses of exposure science
Strengths
1. Informs/validates epidemiologic studies (exposure assignment, exposure validation) 2. Examines disease etiologies
weaknesses:
Costs, statistical power (generalizability, detecting significance)
Environmental health paradigm
Etiologic concentration -> exposure -> internal dose -> health effect
