Environmental Health Exam #1 Questions With Complete Solutions Define Environmental Health - Correct Answers ✅- Environment = complex of physical, chemical, & biotic factors that act upon an organism or ecological community & ultimately determine form & survival
- Environmental Health = addresses all the physical,
chemical, & biological factors external to the person, & all the related factors impacting behaviors -- encompasses control of environmental factors & aims to prevent disease Is environmental health a global issue? - Correct Answers
✅Yes: pollution crosses boundaries; infectious disease; food
safety -- only a small percentage actually tested Define Ecosystem - Correct Answers ✅- "Dynamic complex of plant, animal, & microorganism communities & the nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit"
- Natural systems that function as a unit
- The Ecological Model: proposes that the determinants of
health interact & are interlinked over the life course of individuals Define Natural Population Fertility Rate - Correct Answers ✅Keeps populations stable - in the US, about 2.1 births per woman
Causes of population growth: increases in fertility, reductions
in mortality, migration 1 / 3
Environmental Health Exam #1 Questions With Complete Solutions Understand & estimate the global disease burden attributable to environmental sources - Correct Answers ✅25-33% What is meant by "sensitive subpopulations"? - Correct Answers ✅Very young, women of childbearing age, very old, immune compromised What factors confer sensitivity to examples of these
subpopulations? - Correct Answers ✅- Young: immune
systems not well developed, behavioral actions, dependence on others, rapidly growing
- Women of childbearing age: concern with child being carried
- Old: neurodegeneration, immune system doesn't work as
well
- Immune compromised: vibrio
What are the characteristics (overall and within each stage) of the demographic transition? The epidemiological transition? - Correct Answers ✅- Demographic Transition
has 3 stages: underdeveloped is triangular (have more kids,
kids don't survive, people don't live very long) >> transition to less triangular (death rates drop, birth rates stay the same, rapid growth) .. developed (fertility rates change)
- Epidemiological Transition: communicable & infectious
diseases remain the leading cause of morbidity & mortality in developing countries >> in developed, replaced by chronic, degenerative, noncommunicable diseases 2 / 3
Environmental Health Exam #1 Questions With Complete Solutions What are the "three P's"? How are they interrelated to one another in terms of determinants of global environmental
health? - Correct Answers ✅- Pollution: combustion of fossil
fuels that release greenhouse gases into atmosphere may cause climate change -- environmental disaster events, alter precipitation/atmospheric wind patterns, change in distribution of insect vectors
- Population: overpopulation in developing nations is leading
to the human population possibly exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet --> urban crowding; infectious disease epidemics like H5N1 and H1N1
- Poverty: "Living wage" in US refers to someone who cannot
support themselves even with job/income; linked to population growth; well recognized determinant of adverse health outcomes
- Interrelation: more people --> more pollution --> more
poverty
- Fewer controls; interaction does not create healthy
environment for many What are examples of significant historical texts that lay the foundation of Environmental Health Science as a discipline? -
Correct Answers ✅- Hippocrates: "On Airs, Waters, &
Places" proposed that environmental & climatic factors were influential in causing changes in human health
- Upton Sinclair and "The Jungle"
- Rachel Carson and "Silent Spring"
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