Our health is shaped by the world we live in — from the air we breathe to the food we eat, the water we drink, and the communities we live in, our environment impacts our health and well-being. ASTHO is committed to supporting its members’ environmental health initiatives through expert technical assistance and actionable resources.
What is Environmental Health and Safety?
Environmental health and safety is a core component of overall public health. Environmental health represents the intersection between people’s health and what they encounter in their environments. This covers a broad range of areas that people interact with every day.
Food Safety
The quality of the food we eat is one of the most fundamental factors for our well-being. Public health departments help maintain food safety across the supply chain:
- How crops are grown and livestock is raised.
- How food goods are transported and kept.
- Food safety inspections in retail locations like grocery stores as well as in restaurants and other vendors.
- Setting standards for preparing and keeping food in the home.
Water Safety
The quality of the water we drink and engage with recreationally (e.g., beaches, lakes, pools) can impact our health. Common risks to water safety come from contaminants like pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also called “forever chemicals,” bacteria like Legionella, and harmful algal blooms.
Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality
Air quality can be impacted by factors internal to buildings — such as mold and asbestos — as well as outdoor factors like wildfire smoke and pollen. These factors can exacerbate conditions like asthma and especially impact vulnerable populations like children and older people.
Climate and Health
Factors of our natural environment like rising temperatures and increased frequency of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, also strongly impact our health. Health departments help communities deal with these factors by monitoring for these events and providing plans to respond to these kinds of threats.
Vector-Borne Diseases
Ticks, mosquitoes, fleas, and others can act as vectors, meaning they can transmit pathogens to humans, causing diseases like Lyme, Zika, and West Nile. These vectors are adapting along with rising temperatures and changing habitats. Environmental health programs can monitor these vectors and the spread of disease, which helps in outbreak response and prevention.
The Built Environment
The ways in which the buildings we live, work, and play in are built and maintained can impact our health. Some common problems encountered in our homes include lead paint and asbestos, but the influence of the built environment extends beyond the home. Making our communities safe, walkable, and accessible with sidewalks, public transit, and roads can have an impact on our daily activities. Other important factors include green spaces (e.g., parks) and public sanitation.
What Are Key Interventions to Promote Environmental Public Health?
State and territorial health agencies are best equipped to respond to environmental health concerns when they have access to sufficient resources. Many health departments deal with a lack of funding to build and maintain robust environmental health programs.
Public health agencies especially struggle with workforce concerns — hiring, training, maintaining, and ultimately growing the environmental public health workforce is critical for agencies to do their best work. Supporting pipeline programs like internships and fellowships is a great way to get early career public health professionals involved.
It’s also important to educate the public about environmental public health and its far-reaching impact. Many people conflate environmental health with environmental protection, but these are not the same fields, though they share some common ground. In fact, many states keep these as separate entities. Environmental health is a core foundation of general public health, and environmental health professionals cover many core functions of protecting the public’s health and well-being.
How Does ASTHO Support Environmental Health?
ASTHO’s Environmental Health team helps state and territorial health agencies build capacity to respond to environmental public health concerns through several key activities:
- Support fellowships that strengthen peer-to-peer relationships and build environmental health capacity.
- Build health agency capacity to address healthy housing, including improving lead surveillance and prevention.
- Help island jurisdictions address supply needs for environmental health protection by providing lead poisoning prevention supplies for on-the-ground testing and surveillance.
- Provide opportunities for environmental public health professionals to connect through the State and Territorial Environmental Health Directors peer network, the National Association of Vector-Borne Disease Control Officials, and the State Tribal Liaisons peer group.
- Provide resources and low-cost solutions to help state and territorial agencies set up their own programs to respond to environmental health threats.
- Support cross-sector partnerships and promote a Health in All Policies approach.
ASTHO supports states and territories in addressing the foundation of the public’s health and well-being. Want to learn more or work on building out your agency’s environmental health programs? Reach out to environmentalhealth@astho.org.