Environmental Science: Health Impacts

Environmental Science: Health Impacts is a textbook that presents environmental science concepts for students or practitioners in public health. The fourteen-chapter presentation assumes that the student will benefit from an introduction or a review of basic science principles and how science relates specifically to assessing, preventing, and solving environmental problems. From that foundation the reader is introduced to the existence of natural hazards and mismanaged wastes that endanger public health. The dangers from pollutants and disease-causing organisms in our water, soil, food, and atmosphere are detailed in the book in an objective way, emphasizing that health impacts results only when the public is exposed to dangerous levels of risk from uncontrolled sources that are released and travel through the environment to unprotected populations. The students learn how government agencies regulate waste management and prepare for emergencies. Finally, a concluding challenge is presented to all in public health from our inordinate growth in world population, which threatens the feasibility of maintaining good public health.