One of the public health issues related to environmental issues within the health care delivery in the United States is Environmental Health. As a branch of public health, environmental health focuses on the relationship between the environment and the people therein, making it critical in any public health system. Globally, over 12 million people die annually because of working or living in unhealthy environments (Prüss-Üstün et al., 2016). Therefore, it is critical to focus on lowering exposure to air, food, water, and soil pollutants because such pollutants can result in health complications like heart disease and respiratory diseases. One vulnerable group in society that is easily affected by these conditions is children.
Air pollution, for instance, poses many risks to children because their lungs are still growing, and they breathe in a lot of air since they are very active. Additionally, defences that help adults’ bodies to keep off disease-causing germs are not yet fully established for children.
Children’s water intake per pound based on body weight is higher than that of adults, meaning that children’s likeliness of ingesting relatively increased levels of harmful chemicals are higher than that of adults (Brusseau et al., 2019). Further, children are likely to swallow a higher amount of water than adults when swimming, heightening the risk of exposure to bays, lakes, and rivers contaminants. It is also important to note that children’s organ systems and metabolic systems are under development, leaving them more vulnerable to the effects of contaminated water.
Soil pollution is one of the environmental issues that affects many states in America today. This has been orchestrated by the huge industrialization as well as human activities like chemical spraying to kill herbs and pests which end up being mixed with the soil. It is critical to note that soil contamination negatively affects both plant growth and people, indicating that it is a national challenge.
Secondly, air pollution has continued to lead to high death rates globally. However, the mortality rate of air pollution in the United States is relatively low compared to the rest of the world. However, this does not mean that it is not a problem in the United States (Páez-Osuna et al., 2017). California, for instance, is the highly affected state by air pollution since most of its cities are considered to have poor quality air, which poses a health risk to humans, with children at an even greater risk. The contamination comes from wastes from heating and cooking, oil plants, vehicle emissions, and industrial processes, among others.
The United States has had concerns regarding toxic metabolites levels in both sea and tap water, which result in water contamination. Oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and California have also contributed to the marine environment’s damage (Operti et al., 2018). In addition, secondary level homes, businesses, and large units production’s wastage have also become hazardous to the well-being of humans, the children included. All these instances indicate that environmental health is a national-level issue.
The problem statement established is a need to minimize soil, water, and air pollution for the well-being of humans, particularly children.As currently constituted, the current plan utilizes the traditional command and control approach to control pollution. One way of addressing the environmental health issue, particularly pollution, is the reduction, elimination, or prevention of the sources of pollution. This can be achieved by introducing pollution prevention strategies or approaches such as the utilization of raw materials with lower toxic levels, the use of industrial processes associated with less pollution, and improving processes’ efficiency. Secondly, air pollution can be controlled by cleaner fuels use and control of transportation-related emissions.
Further, economic incentives can also be used whereby the government extends economic incentives to companies and firms that have taken efforts to control pollution in their operations. This can be done both at the federal or the state government levels (Agathokleous & Calabrese, 2020). It is critical to note that air pollution cannot be controlled by geographic boundaries since some pollutants can move for long distances to affect public health locally, nationally, and internationally by lowering air quality.
One way such pollution can be controlled is by encouraging every state to implement plans that would prevent toxic emissions within their borders. Therefore, the state governments should use legislative processes to adopt various control measures and ensure their inclusion in the general implementation plans by the states, following approval by EPA. One way through which such a change in the policy can be achieved is by conducting public awareness exercise to educate the general public on the importance of controlling pollution. This would involve stakeholders like the government through its officials (both state and federal), environmentalists, and the general public.
It is significant to reduce pollutants in the air and in water to boost human health and the environment. This is because poor quality air negatively affects human health and presents vulnerabilities to risks like respiratory as well as cardiovascular problems. As already highlighted, children are at a higher risk as compared to adults. Controlling pollution, therefore, is likely to save the next generation by ensuring that children are not highly exposed to its dangers.
References
Agathokleous, E., & Calabrese, E. J. (2020). A global environmental health perspective and optimisation of stress. Science of the Total Environment, 704, 135263.
Brusseau, M. L., Ramirez-Andreotta, M., Pepper, I. L., & Maximillian, J. (2019). Environmental impacts on human health and well-being. In Environmental and Pollution Science (pp. 477-499). Academic Press.
Operti, F. G., Oliveira, E. A., Carmona, H. A., Machado, J. C., & Andrade Jr, J. S. (2018). The light pollution as a surrogate for urban population of the US cities. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 492, 1088-1096.a
Páez-Osuna, F., Álvarez-Borrego, S., Ruiz-Fernández, A. C., García-Hernández, J., Jara-Marini, M. E., Bergés-Tiznado, M. E. & Sanchez-Cabeza, J. A. (2017). Environmental status of the Gulf of California: a pollution review. Earth-Science Reviews, 166, 181-205.
Prüss-Üstün, A., Wolf, J., Corvalán, C., Bos, R., &Neira, M. (2016). Preventing disease through healthy environments: a global assessment of the burden of disease from environmental risks. World Health Organization.