PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Suseno Hadi, MEM, PhD

Definition Environmental Health• “the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors

(as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival.” (Frumkin, 2005)

• “[Environmental health] [c]omprises those aspects of human health, including quality of life, that are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social and psychosocial factors in the environment. It also refers to the theory and practice of assessing, correcting, controlling, and preventing those factors in the environment that can potentially affect adversely the health of present and future generations” (World Health Organization [WHO], 2004).

Handbook of environmental health by Herman Koren and Michael Bisesi

• Earth is divided into:– the lithosphere - land masses, – the hydrosphere, or the oceans, lakes, streams,

and underground waters (entire aquatic environment.

Siklus Ekosistem• Two type of environments: biotic (living) + abiotic

(nonliving) combine to form an ecosystem.

• An ecosystem can also be subdivided by more specific criteria into the following four categories: 1. Abiotic, the nutrient minerals that are synthesized into living

protoplasm; 2. Autotrophic, the producer organisms (largely the green plants)

that assimilate the nutrient minerals using energy and combine them into living organic substances;

3. Heterotrophic, the consumers, usually the animals, that ingest or eat organic matter and release energy; and

4. Heterotrophic reducers, the bacteria or fungi that return the complex organic compounds to their original abiotic state and release the remaining chemical energy.

Siklus Ekosistem

• The biotic group in the ecosystem complex is essentially composed of the autotrophs, or producer organisms that synthesize organic substances, and the heterotrophs, or consumer or reducer organisms that decompose labile organic substances.

Food Chain

Energy cycle

Comprehensive System

Implementation of Environmental Health

• Water• Air• Soil• Waste• Toxicology• Social issues• Political issues

Tugas 1

• Find article on a particular topic of environmental health

• Identify key issues related to the health of to environment.

• Identify key issues related to human health

• Identify key issues of the sustenance of the above connection.