Section 2 Section 2a What’s Environmental Health?

Section 2: What is Environmental Health?

There are many elements that make up our environment and contribute to our overall health. The National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) defines environmental health as the following:

“Environmental health is the science and practice of preventing human injury and illness and promoting well-being by identifying and evaluating environmental sources and hazardous agents and limiting exposures to hazardous physical, chemical, and biological agents in air, water, soil, food, and other environmental media or settings that may adversely affect human health.”

The goal of environmental health as a practiced science is to prevent and/or treat environmentally related human health problems by analyzing the relationships between social and cultural factors on one side, and chemical, physical and biological factors on the other in order to:

+ Identify what in the environment is causing health problems

+ Identify how and where in the environment people are being exposed to health hazards;

+ Identify what can be done either to reduce or eliminate human exposure to these hazards; and

+ Monitor these health risks or hazards over time to ensure continued safety of the public.

Why Environmental Health?

Section 2a: Why is EH important to Tribal Communities?

Many traditional North American Native Tribal Populations maintain intricate and ecologically interdependent relationships with the natural environment that were cultivated over centuries.2 Because of this reliance on natural resources to maintain traditional diets, lifeways, customs and languages, there is a unique need for tribal-focused research to identify the impacts of pollution, dietary exposures, cumulative risks, environmental justice issues, and climate changes.3

American Indian (AI) communities face a number of environmental hazards such as living in remote and isolated areas that expose residents to severe climatic conditions, hazardous geography, disease carrying vectors (rodents/insects), limited availability of housing and health clinics, as well as exposure to unsanitary water and wastewater methods. In addition, Tribes are facing new challenges in dealing with chronic diseases that were not major issues in past years as well other challenges associated with social determinants. A complex set of conditions, including longer life expectancy, dramatic lifestyle changes, changes in dietary practices, pollutants, and a variety of other environmental changes, contribute to new challenges in managing chronic disease and maintaining a community’s overall health.4

Tribal Institutions have increased emphasis on restoring and protecting the health and knowledge base of Tribal communities. This requires that environmental health hazards be identified to allow lifestyle adjustments and mitigation actions to be taken to reduce the health risks. Tribes must continue to promote and develop community resources and involvement to target environmental health promotion efforts at the local level. Community environmental health must be recognized as programs and services that extend outside of health clinics and into other community resources, such as homes, schools, clinics, restaurants, water sources, and many others.4

These compounded issues, make it even more imperative to focus on building the capacity of Tribal nations to navigate and improve their own environmental health programs to address the evolving climate of health in individual communities to better prepare for disasters and emergencies that may arise. Southern Plains Tribal Health Board (SPTHB) is committed to helping our Tribal partners identity, address, and respond the issues mentioned above.