PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Objectives:

Provide a broad, in-depth overview of important environmental health science issues (e.g., environmental disease, toxic chemicals, air and water quality, solar and ionizing radiation, ecosystem degradation) and how these issues impact the health of the public in the developed and developing world. This course is to be cross-listed with the School of Environment.

Course contents:

Introduction

• Understanding the significance of the environment for human health
• Human population pressures and pollution dynamics
• Common terms and definitions in environmental health sciences

Environmental Toxicology

• What is toxicology and why is it important to public health?
• Terms and definitions
• Relationships between pollutant exposure and toxic response
• Linkages to risk assessment of the likelihood for environmental diseases 

Environmental Policies to Protect Human Health 

• Overview of the environmental regulatory process in the US
• Pollutant risk assessment in policy development
• Environmental health regulations in place to protect human health 
• Contributions of Environmental Health Sciences to Disease Understanding
• Role of environmental health sciences in protecting the public from environmental disease
• Detection and characterization of environmentally induced disease
• Limits and deficiencies in environmental disease assessment

Toxic Metals and Elements 

• Overview of types and sources of toxic metals in the environment
• Essential metals and their potential for toxicity
• Metal-related environmental disease

Environmental Organic Chemicals and Health

• Major classes of pesticides, routes of exposure, and their health effects
• PCBs and Dioxins in the environment
• Organic solvents and polyaromatic hydrocarbons in air and water
• Household cleaning agents, plasticizers, and environmental estrogens

Ionizing and Non-Ionizing Radiation

• Types/sources of ionizing radiation (e.g., X-, gamma rays; Radon, cesium, strontium)
• How is radiation measured, and what are “safe” levels?
• Health effects of ionizing radiation (burns, mutations, cancers)
• Environmental hazards of disposal of ionizing wastes
• Non-ionizing radiation and health(UV light, electromagnetic radiation, cell-phone RF radiation)

Water Quality and Health

• Sources of drinking water
• Common contaminants of drinking water and linkages to disease
• Treatment of water for human consumption (tap versus bottled)
• Environmental quality criteria for US surface waters (rivers, streams, lakes)
• Beach and coastal pollution, disease pathogens, harmful algae

Air Quality and Health

• Sources and causes of outdoor air pollution
• Chemical agents of air pollution and smog
• Health effects of outdoor air pollution
• US air quality standards to protect public health
• Sources/causes of indoor air pollution
• Chemical/biological agents of indoor air pollution
• Health effects of poor indoor air quality

Pollution and Global Change

• Overview of agents responsible (CO2, methane, CFCs) and mechanisms of action
• Human and ecosystem health effects of global climate change (tropical diseases, skin cancers)