08 Ecology and Health
Highlights:
1. Ecological factors affecting health and well-being
Exhaustion of natural resources e.g. water, land, food
- Water scarcity : affect personal hygiene
- Food scarcity : nutrition
- Food and water-born diseases due to improper heating of food and water
Global warming
- Alter the pattern of exposure of vector-borne infections include malaria and dengue fever
Forms of Pollution and their impact on health
- Chemical
- some toxic substances accumulated in various tissues and organs in different body systems
- Radiation
- risks of anemia and cancer
- Water
- transmitting pathogens causing typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera and parasitic worms
- Noise
- damage of hearing, neurasthenia
- Air
- respiratory illnesses such as asthma, pneumonia, and bronchitis
Natural disasters
- Physical
- Physical injury, Deficiency in nutrition, infectious diseases due to crowding of survivors
- Mental
- Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
- Social
- breakdown of social network in some cases
Reading:
Application:
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2. Actions at different levels
Individual
- Personal roles in protecting the environment
- e.g. resource conservation, 3R – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Society
- Government roles in the protecting the environment
- e.g. legislation, promotion such as campaigns related to cleanliness and hygiene control of pollutants, industrial waste, food safety, etc.
Global
- Relationships between developed and developing nations and societies
- Example(1): Emission of Carbon Dioxide
- Example(2): Electronic Wastes
- The WHO approach to health promotion and illness prevention
- The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion – fundamental conditions and resources for health are peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity
Latest Update: October 2019
Power-point
Assessing my learning
- How does ecology affect our health?
- What is a healthy ecology?
- How can we build and maintain a healthy ecology?