What Is Environmental Health?
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"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
- Conditions that ensure that all living things have the best opportunity to reach and maintain their full genetic potential. (Steven G. Gilbert, 1999)
- Environmental Health is defined as those factors in the natural, built, and social environment which influence human development, health and well being. (Australian Institute of Environmental Health)
- Environmental health comprises those aspects of human health, including quality of life, that are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social, and psychosocial factors in the environment. It also refers to the theory and practice of assessing, correcting, controlling, and preventing those factors in the environment that can potentially affect adversely the health of present and future generations. (World Health Organization (WHO) - draft definition developed at a WHO consultation in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1993)
- Environmental health and protection refers to protection against environmental factors that may adversely impact human health or the ecological balances essential to long-term human health and environmental quality, whether in the natural or man-made environment. (National Environmental Health Association (NEHA))
- Environmental health comprises those aspects of human health, including quality of life, that are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social and psychosocial factors in the environment. It also refers to the theory and practice of assessing, correcting, controlling and preventing those factors in the environment that can potentially affect adversely the health of present and future generations. (WHO Regional Office for Europe)
For additional definitions, see An Ensemble of Definitions of Environmental Health, developed by the Risk Communication and Education Subcommittee, Environmental Health Policy Committee, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (November 20, 1998)