JOBS - Science & Public Health
What is public health? | What is environmental health?
What is public health?
The Association of Schools of Public Health has a good description on its website. Public health focuses on prevention and health promotion at a population level, unlike clinical health professions, which focus on the diagnoses and treatment of disease in an individual.
This field is promising because:
- major advances in improvement of health over the next decades may not come from new medical findings or cures, but rather the broader development and application of population-based prevention programs
- as the public has become better informed about the effects of toxic wastes and pollutants on their health, greater emphasis is being placed on assuring the safety of our communities and on worker health and safety. As a result, there is growing demand for experts in environmental health and industrial hygiene.
What is environmental health?
Environmental health is the study of how environmental factors can harm human health and how to identify, prevent, and control these effects. The field concerns itself with:
- maintaining a safe supply of food and drinking water
- discovering the mechanisms of environmentally related diseases
- treating and disposing of solid and toxic wastes
- reducing air, water, food, and noise pollution
- controlling workplace hazards
Environmental health gives first priority to people and their health and indirectly concerns itself with environmental quality and the health of ecosystems.
