This glossary will help you understand words or terms related to Environmental Health Sciences.
"If you want to learn about the health of a population,
look at the air they breathe,
the water they drink,
and the places where they live."
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, in the Fifth Century B.C.
What is Environmental Health?
Environmental health centers on the relationships between people and their environment.
When people are exposed to hazards like polluted air and lead in their drinking water, they can develop serious conditions, such as asthma, heart disease, cancer and dementia. The environmental health field advances policies and programs that reduce chemical and other environmental exposures in air, water, soil and food.
A key part of any comprehensive public health system, environmental health ensures everyone has a safe place to live, learn, work and play.
What is Environmental Injustice?
Communities affected by environmental injustices are most often composed of marginalized racial/ethnic, low-wealth, rural, immigrant/refugee, indigenous and other populations that live in areas disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards, unhealthy land uses, psychosocial stressors, historical traumas and systemic racism, all of which drive environmental health disparities.
This disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color is also known as environmental racism, which stems from intentional institutional policies or decisions that target communities of color for undesirable land uses, such as the siting of polluting industries that release toxic and hazardous waste.
What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental justice (EJ) is the idea that all people should have the right to live in healthy communities free of harmful environmental conditions. Environmental justice essentially means that everyone—regardless of race, color, disability, age, national origin, or income—has the right to the same environmental protections and benefits, as well as meaningful involvement in the policies that shape their communities.
The environmental justice movement works to combat environmental racism and other oppressive systems, as it was born from decades of community mobilization, the civil rights movement and environmentalism.
Environmental health is important because it ensures that people have a safe place to live, work, learn, and play. Environmental hazards can have short-term and long-term consequences, and can lead to serious health issues.
People from racial and ethnic minority groups, indigenous communities, and communities with lower access to resources, are most often over exposed to environmental hazards, such as environmental pollutants and climate-related events.
In the United States, air pollution (PM 2.5) disproportionately affects populations that have inequal access to resources based on race or ethnicity. Some racial and ethnic minority groups are also more likely to live in urban heat islands. These are urban areas that experience higher temperatures due to pavement and concrete trapping and re-emitting heat from the sun.
Communities with lower access to resources are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, such as living near a Superfund site (a location contaminated by hazardous waste that the EPA has designated for management and cleanup) and are more likely to have older homes that may have asbestos or lead paint and pipes.
