Environmental health (original) (raw)

Environmental health is a branch of medicine concerned with the human health effects of change to the natural environment (air, water, soil, foods grown in same). It has a special concern with toxic waste and other pollution discharged in or near urban areas, and the so-called "sick building syndrome". All of these cause a certain degree of morbidity (premature death due to this exposure) which is often quite hard to distinguish from other causes.

Nutrition, disease prevention and public health are related concerns. Together, the four concerns are often described as part of wellness. When well-being of a whole population is measured, these become economic and political concerns. Increasingly wellness concerns are affecting fiscal policy and prompting some advocates to call for monetary reform (to end systematic pollution credit, governments actually paying to create human health harms).