Environmental Health & Hazards Resource Guide
Section 2 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.
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