Public Health Issues in Global Context

Around the world, children under five are the main victims and make up 74 percent of deaths due to diseases characterized by diarrhea and lower respiratory infections. In some countries, more than one third of the disease burden could be prevented through environmental improvements.

Air pollution from smoke and various chemicals kills 3 million people a year. In the United States alone, about 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment each year- contributiong to cancer, birth defects, immune system defects and many other serious health problems.

Smoking kills 900,000 people every year in India, unless corrective action is taken soon that number will increase to 1 million smoking-related deaths annually by 2010 and beyond.

-Reduce emission from automobiles: automobile numbers are on the rise all over the world. India and China constitute the two largest populations on Earth. The number of automobiles plying the roads here are enormous to the point that any pollution control law is negated. Cleaner engines and low-emission kits can reduce the pollution produced by each automobile unit, but considering the large number of cars running worldwide, they do not do much good in cleaning up the environment.

-Reduce harmful gas emissions from factories: no country can exist today in this materialistic world without industries. Unfortunately, every industry adds some pollutant to the environment. Instead of enforcing laws to make industries pollution-free, it simply lays down laws to regulate the level of harmful pollutants released into the environment. This is because governments are more concerned with the economic benefits of industries than implementing costlier mechanisms of pollution control.

-The call of the hour is a smart strategy or some kind of mechanism that can remove pollution altogether and not just control it to a limited extent. This is the only way that the environment can return to an equilibrium. Keeping in mind the importance of manufacturing units and other industries in this modern world, there needs to be strategies that can remove air pollution to ensure a healthy life for all human beings.

-Controlling the smokers' society: smoking could be controlled (control of traditions, the smokers' society, their environment...) or special smoking areas could be established for that reason.

-Back to Nature: rainforests or other green areas should not be destroyed in order to maintain or even improve the production of fresh Oxygene.

Soil is contaminated by many chemicals and pathogens, which are passed on to humans through direct contact or in their food and water. Increased soil erosion worldwide not only results in more soil being displaced, but also contributes to the spread of disease microbes and various toxins.

-Excavate soil and take it to a disposal site away from ready pathways for human or sensitive ecosystem contact. This technique also applies to dredging of bay muds containing toxins.

-Aeration of soils at the contaminated site

-Bioremediation, involving microbial digestion of certain organic chemicals. Techniques used in bioremediation include landfarming, biostimulation and bioaugmentating soil biota with commercially available microflora.

-Extraction of groundwater or soil vapor with an active electromechanical system, with subsequent stripping of the contaminants from the extract. Containment of the soil contaminants (such as by capping or paving over in place).

-Phytoremediation, or using plants (such as willow) to extract heavy metals

With 1.2 billion people lacking clean water, waterbone infections account for 80 percent of all infectious diseases. Increased water pollution creates breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which kill 1.2 million to 2.7 million people every year. Air pollution kills about 3 million people annually. Unsanitary living conditions accout for more than 5 million deaths each year, and more than half of those are children.

-In domestic: utilizing a green infrastructure approach to improve stormwater management capacity throughout the system, and reduce the hydraulic overloading of the treatment plant repair and replacement of leaking and malfunctioning equipmentincreasing overall hydraulic capacity of the sewage collection system.

-Industrial wastewater (heated water): cooling ponds, man-made bodies of water designed for cooling by evaporation, convection, and radiationcooling towers, which transfer waste heat to the atmosphere through evaporation and/or heat transfercogeneration, a process where waste heat is recycled for domestic and/or industrial heating purposes.

At the same time, more microbes are becoming increasingly drug-resistant. And global warming, together with changes in biological diversity, influence parasite evolution and the ability of exotic species to invade new areas. As a result diseases such as tubercolosis and influenza are re-emerging as major threats while new threats - including West Nile virus and Lyme disease - have developed or spread.

References:

-D.Pimetel et al. 1998

-Prüss - Üstün - 2008

-http://environment.about.com/ articles

-Facts against air pollution

-Soil contamination (Wikipedia)

-Water pollution (Wikipedia)