Climate Change as a Public Health Issue

11/04/2020

Kadeane MooYoungWest Coast University

Climate Change as a Public Health Issue

Environmental injustice can be well-defined as the unduly exposure of societies of the poor and color to pollution, and its related impacts on the environment and health, in addition to the uneven ecological protection and ecological excellence provided through regulations, laws, and government programs. Environmental injustice came from the element that several human groups or communities are excessively exposed to greater levels of an ecological threat than other parts of the community (Bick et al., 2018). There is real proof that environmental injustice is triggered by various factors, including unequal political power, misguided regulatory policy, unequal regulation enforcement, discriminatory siting, and higher exposure to environmental menaces. Social status and particularly low salaries are majorly linked to greater exposure to ecological risks in the residential location or private.

Science ought to play a critical part in the creation of a public health strategy. For a new and complex emerging matter such as environmental justice, science regularly cannot give policymakers with examination data to point decisively to a certain solution (Whyte, 2018). Among the environmental injustices met by ethnic minority and racial communities, one feature that is regularly overlooked is the impact of discrimination on the environs that the society is founded in. The common examples of social injustice that such communities undergo include: homophobia, discrimination, and ageism.  

Public health is the art of improving and protecting the wellbeing of individuals and their societies. It is attained by responding and preventing infectious sicknesses, promoting healthy lifestyles, and investigating sickness and injury prevention. The advantages of approaching a health disparity as a public health issue normally yield health welfares, indirect and direct. Public health supports the well-being of the whole community, safeguards its safety and safeguards it from the spread of environmental hazards and infectious disease, and aids in ensuring access to quality and safe care to profit the populace. Public health should insert social justice to decrease rates of medical conditions caused by injustice. 

Reference

Bick, R., Halsey, E., & Ekenga, C. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion Environmental Health, 17(1), 92

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7

Whyte, K. (2018). Settler colonialism, ecology, and environmental injustice. Environment and Society, 9(1), 125-144.

https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090109