EHS Exam 1

Environmental Health Protection

Protection from environmentally associated health hazards, regarded as a fundamental human right.

Environmental Policy

A statement by an organization of its intentions and principles in relation to its overall environmental performance, providing a framework for action and enabling the setting of environmental objectives and targets.

Precautionary Principle

Preventive, anticipatory measures should be taken when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment, wildlife, or human health, even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established.

Environmental Justice

The equal treatment of all people in society irrespective of their racial background, country of origin, and socioeconomic status.

Environmental Sustainability

The philosophical viewpoint that a strong, just, and wealthy society can be consistent with a clean environment, healthy ecosystems, and a beautiful planet.

Polluter-Pays Principle

The polluter should bear the expenses of carrying out pollution prevention and control measures to ensure that the environment is in an acceptable state.

Risk Assessment (in policy)

Closely aligned with the policy process through balancing economic and other costs with health and societal benefits that may accrue through specific policy alternatives.

Risk Management

The adoption of steps to eliminate identified risks or lower them to acceptable levels, often determined by a government agency after considering public input.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

A process that reviews the potential impact of human (anthropogenic) activities with respect to their general environmental consequences.

Health Impact Assessment (HIA)

A method for describing and estimating the effects that a proposed project or policy may have on the health of a population.

World Health Organization (WHO)

A major international agency responsible for environmental health at the global level, providing leadership in minimizing adverse environmental health outcomes associated with pollution and industrial development.

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

A federal agency established in July 1970 with the mission to protect human health and the environment.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

A federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, created by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

Clean Air Act of 1970

A comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources and authorizes the EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and welfare.

Clean Water Act (CWA)

First enacted as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 and amended in 1972 and 1977, it establishes the basic structure for regulating pollutants discharged into US waters.

Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974

A law established to protect the quality of drinking water in the US by authorizing the EPA to establish minimum standards for tap water and requiring public water systems to comply with health-related standards.

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)

One of the first laws establishing a broad national framework for protecting the environment, ensuring all branches of government consider environmental impacts before undertaking major federal actions.

Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1996

Provides for federal regulation of pesticide distribution, sale, and use, requiring pesticides sold in the US to be registered (licensed) by EPA, demonstrating they will not cause unreasonable adverse environmental effects.

Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976

Provides the EPA with authority to require reporting, record-keeping, and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures, and maintains the TSCA Inventory of chemicals.

CERCLA 1980 (Superfund)

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which provides a federal 'Superfund' to clean up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites, and addresses accidents, spills, and emergency releases of pollutants.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976

Gives the EPA control over hazardous waste from 'cradle-to-grave,' including its generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal, and addresses environmental problems from underground storage tanks.

Endangered Species Act of 1973

Provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found, with the US Fish and Wildlife Service maintaining a worldwide list.

Basic Assumption of Toxicology

All substances are poisons; there is none that is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.

Toxicology

The study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms.

Paracelsus

One of the founders of modern toxicology; contributed to the concept of the dose-response relationship and notion of target organ specificity of chemicals.

Mathieu Orfila

Authored Trait des poisons (1813); described various types of poisons and their bodily effects, contributing to forensic toxicology.

Toxicologist

A scientist extensively trained to investigate the adverse effects of chemicals in living organisms and assess the probability of their occurrence.

Environmental Toxicology

Examines how environmental exposures to chemical pollutants may present risks to biological organisms such as animals, birds, and fish.

Poison

Any agent capable of producing a deleterious response in a biological system.

Toxicity

The degree to which something is poisonous, related to a material
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Toxicants

Toxic substances that are human-made or result from human (anthropogenic) activity.

Toxin

Usually refers to a toxic substance made by living organisms, such as reptiles, insects, plants, or microorganisms.

Dose

The amount of a substance administered at one time.

Lethal Dose 50 (LD50)

The dosage (mg/kg body weight) causing death in 50 percent of exposed animals, used to compare the toxicities of different chemicals.

Dose

Response Relationship

A type of correlative relationship between the characteristics of exposure to a chemical and the spectrum of effects caused by the chemical.

Dose

Response Curve

A type of graph used to describe the effect of exposure to a chemical or toxic substance upon an organism.

Threshold

The lowest dose at which a particular response may occur.

Routes of Exposure

Ways a chemical can enter the body, including ingestion, injection, dermal contact, and inhalation.

Additivity

A combination of two chemicals produces an effect equal to the sum of their individual effects.

Synergism

The combined effect of exposures to two or more chemicals is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Potentiation

One chemical that is not toxic causes another chemical to become more toxic.

Antagonism

Two chemicals administered together interfere with each other
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Acute Exposure

A single exposure for less than 24 hours.

Subacute Exposure

Exposure for 1 month or less.

Subchronic Exposure

Exposure for 1 to 3 months.

Chronic Exposure

Exposure for more than 3 months.

Local Effects

Damage where a chemical first contacts the body.

Systemic Effects

Generalized distribution of a chemical throughout the body by the bloodstream to internal organs.

Target Organ Effects

Chemical effects confined to specific organs.

Latency

The time period between initial exposure and a measurable response, ranging from seconds to decades.

Carcinogen

A chemical (or substance) that causes or is suspected of causing cancer.

Risk Assessment

Provides a qualitative or quantitative estimation of the likelihood of adverse effects that may result from exposure to specified health hazards.

Hazard

The inherent capability of a natural or human-made agent or process to adversely affect human life, health, property, or activity.

Hazard Identification

Examines the evidence that associates exposure to an agent with its toxicity and produces a qualitative judgment about the strength of that evidence.

Dose-Response Assessment

Measures the relationship between the amount of exposure and the occurrence of the unwanted health effects.

Exposure Assessment

A procedure that identifies exposed populations, describes their composition and size, and examines the routes, magnitudes, frequencies, and durations of such exposures.

Risk Characterization

Develops estimates of the number of excess unwarranted health events expected at different time intervals at each level of exposure.

Risk Management

Specific actions taken to control exposures to toxic chemicals in the environment, such as exposure standards or product recalls.

Environmental Epidemiology

The study of diseases and health conditions (occurring in the population) linked to environmental factors. Exposures are usually involuntary.

Observational Science

Epidemiology is primarily an observational science, taking advantage of naturally occurring situations to study the occurrence of disease.

Descriptive Studies

Depiction of the occurrence of disease in populations according to classification by person, place, and time variables.

Analytic Studies

Examines causal (etiologic) hypotheses regarding the association between exposures and health conditions.

Prevalence

Number of existing cases of or deaths from a disease or health condition in a population at some designated time.

Point Prevalence

All cases of or deaths from a disease or health condition that exist at a particular point in time relative to a specific population from which the cases are derived.

Incidence

Occurrence of new cases of disease or mortality within a defined period of observation in a specified population.

Case Fatality Rate (CFR)

A measure of the lethality of a disease, calculated as (Number of deaths due to disease 'X' / Number of cases of disease 'X') x 100 during a time period.

Sir Percival Pott

A London surgeon thought to be the first individual to describe an environmental cause of cancer, linking scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps to soot contact.

John Snow

An English anesthesiologist who linked a cholera outbreak in London to contaminated water from the Thames River in the mid-1800s, employing a 'natural experiment'.

Odds Ratio (OR)

A measure of association between exposure and outcome, used in case-control studies, representing the ratio of the odds in favor of exposure among cases to the odds in favor of exposure among non-cases (controls).

Relative Risk (RR)

The ratio of the incidence rate of a disease or health outcome in an exposed group to the incidence rate of the disease or condition in a non-exposed group.

Epidemiologic Triangle

A framework used to describe the causality of infectious diseases and other environmental problems, consisting of Agent, Host, and Environment.

Environment (Epidemiologic Triangle)

The domain in which disease-causing agents may exist, survive, or originate; consists of 'All that which is external to the individual human host'.

Host (Epidemiologic Triangle)

A person or other living animal that affords subsistence or lodgment to an infectious agent under natural conditions.

Agent (Epidemiologic Triangle)

A factor (e.g., a microorganism, chemical substance, form of radiation, mechanical, behavioral, social agent or process) whose presence, excessive presence, or relative absence is essential for the occurrence of a disease.

Causality

The assessment of a causal association between an agent factor (exposure) and a disease (outcome), requiring certain criteria to be considered.

Hill's Criteria of Causality

A set of criteria for assessing causality, including Strength, Consistency, Specificity, Temporality, Biological gradient, Plausibility, and Coherence.

Bias

A systematic deviation of results or inferences from the truth; an error in the conception, design, collection, analysis, interpretation, reporting, publication, or review of data leading to systematically different results or conclusions from the truth.

Healthy Worker Effect

The observation that employed populations tend to have a lower mortality experience than the general population, which can introduce selection bias into occupational mortality studies.

Confounding

Distortion of a measure of the effect of an exposure on an outcome due to the association of the exposure with other factors that influence the occurrence of the outcome.

Distinction between Bias and Confounding

Bias is a systematic error in how data is measured or reported, whereas confounding refers to real but misleading associations due to other influencing factors.

Limitations of Epidemiologic Studies

Challenges in epidemiologic studies include long latency periods, low incidence and prevalence, difficulties in exposure assessment, and nonspecific effects.

Environmental Quality

Maintaining the health and safety of the environment, a pressing task for the 21st century.

Healthy People 2030 Goals

Aims to promote healthier environments to improve health, focusing on objectives such as outdoor air quality, water quality, toxics and wastes, healthy homes and communities, infrastructure and surveillance, and global environmental health.

Environmental Health (HP2020 Goal 8)

To promote health for all through a healthy environment.

Environmental Health Threats

Include trash fouling beaches, hazardous wastes (radioactive) leaching, air pollution, exposures to toxic chemicals, deforestation, and global warming.

The Three P's (Environmental Health)

Principal determinants of health worldwide: Pollution, Population, and Poverty.

Pollution

The combustion of fossil fuels (petroleum/coal) leading to greenhouse gas dispersion, global warming, and petroleum-based plastics that often end up in oceans.

Population (Environmental Impact)

Refers to issues like overpopulation in developing nations, human population exceeding the planet's carrying capacity, and urban crowding.

Infectious Disease Epidemics (Crowding Consequence)

Outbreaks like avian influenza A (H5N1) and swine flu (H1N1 influenza) that can spread rapidly, sometimes becoming pandemics due to human-to-human transmission.

Poverty

Linked to population growth and recognized as a determinant of adverse health outcomes, often resulting in lack of access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare, healthy foods, and protective living conditions.

Hazardous Agents

Factors like microbes, toxic chemicals and metals, pesticides, and ionizing radiation that account for many forms of environmentally associated morbidity and mortality.

Environmental Risk Transition

Changes in environmental risks that occur as a consequence of economic development in less developed regions; transitioning from poor quality food, air, and water to problems like acid rain precursors, ozone-depleting chemicals, and greenhouse gases.

Population (Definition)

A collection of individuals that share one or more observable personal or observational characteristics from which data may be collected and evaluated.

Population Growth

Increasing at an exponential rate, threatening to overwhelm available resources and potentially causing periodic food scarcity and famine.

Population Change Factors

Determined by births and deaths, where births exceeding deaths lead to population increase, and deaths exceeding births lead to population decrease.

Causes of Population Growth

Increases in fertility, reductions in mortality, and migration.

Public Health

The science and art of promoting health and extending life on the population level, concerned with threats to health within a group of people sharing characteristics.

Population Dynamics

The ever-changing interrelationships among variables that influence the demographic makeup, growth, and decline of population sizes.

Fertility (Total Fertility Rate - TFR)

The number of children a woman has given birth to by the end of childbearing, with an estimated natural population replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman.

Demographic Transition

Alterations over time in a population’s fertility, mortality, and make-up, typically progressing through three stages affecting age and sex distributions.