The article describes how chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are becoming more connected to environmental variables such as air, soil, and water pollutants. The chapter discusses the consequences, causes, and responses to major chronic environmental diseases, focusing on recent epidemiological evidence demonstrating their significance. Inequality and disparity play essential roles in how these diseases affect various groups, with factors such as pollutant exposure, health practices, access to healthcare, and stress acting as linkages between environments and chronic illnesses. Intervention and preparedness measures are presented throughout the text to reduce California’s and the rest of the world’s chronic environmental diseases, with case studies and critical processes.
This text relates to environmental science because it explores the relationship between human health and pollutants. It explains the connection between diseases like cancer and heart disease and environmental contaminants in the air, soil, and water. It shows the importance of environmental research, which connects elements of public health and ecology, emphasizing the impact of social surroundings on the course of disease. The article explains the different outcomes depending on the socio-cultural levels. Ultimately, environmental science plays a critical role in developing strategies for intervention, which help facilitate and make people aware of the worldwide effects of chronic environmental diseases.
Interesting article. I think common sense tells us that there is an environmental connection on many human health issues. But the challenge seems like it’s making a clear cause and effect relationship between diabetes and the environment, for example. You can imagine trying to hold polluters accountable for harming human health is going to bring in their attorneys trying to say its not the env. but something else.
DId they say anything about the “epidemiological evidence” that was mentioned in your abstract. I’m curious about that. Of course they can be like people in this neighborhood have a higher frequency of some type of cancer or asthma or something. How to gt the cause and effect relationship I think is complicated. Hopefully in the meantime there’s a way to hold polluters accountable and get them to stop polluting if we have this link to human health.
Hope this topic kept you interested, Ana. Thanks for all your good reporting and thoughtful reflections.