Midterm #2 Env PH

what is the gold standard in prevention?

primary prevention

what is primary prevention?

1. prevent being exposed to something in the first place.

what are the two ways to induce primary prevention?

1. Health promotion

   1. Ex: education about lead

2. Specific protection

   1. Ex: remove lead

secondary prevention

1. Secondary prevention: prevent the disease onset (assuming exposure has occured)

tertiary prevention

1. Tertiary prevention: prevent disease progression (assuming disease has been acquired)

Primary prevention in industrial hygiene:

1. Best: Substitution–completly remove hazard

2. Better: isolate and reduce hazard (limit exposure)

3. Good: PPE

Pollution prevention

1. Primary: Use fewer raw materials at the outset (reduce)

2. Secondary: reuse or recycle the materials

3. Tertiary prevention: minimize damages from waste

   1. Environmental regulations—Enforce limits on industrial emissions, wastewater discharge, and hazardous waste disposal.

the UN’s 5 Sustainable Development Principles (PIRIP)

1. Precautionary principle

   1. A lack of total scientific certainty should NOT be an impediment to implementing prevention measures

2. Intergenerational equity

   1. Meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations

3. Right to know

   1. All people have the right to know about the presence of hazards in their communities

   2. Participate in the decision-making processes that affect them

4. Integrated decision-making

5. Polluter pays

   1. Polluters should be responsible for the societal costs incurred by their pollution

why is UN’s Sustainable Development Goals like a wedding cake?

• the planet influences the people which can lead to prosperity

• international cooperation is key to achieving all these goals

what are the 4 planet goals

• 1. Life below water

• 2. Life on land

• 3. Climate action

• 4. Clean water and sanitation

risk = ? x ?

• Risk = likelihood x consequences

what are the two ways to express risk?

• Frequency of expected cases

• Level of exposure relative to threshold

vulnerability

Characteristics or conditions that make exposures more likely and/or the health impacts of those exposures more likely or more severe

Environmental justice means that

• Environmental hazards must not be disproportionally burdened

• All communities should have equal access to a health environment

Physiological susceptibility

• refers to pre-existing conditions or age

what is red-lining?

• Racist housing policy of determining who gets mortgages

• Denied mortgages of communities of color

consequences of redlining

• Blocked intergenerational wealth

  • Leads to lower education development and health prosperity

• Lower property values (While homes in greenlined or predominantly white neighborhoods appreciated rapidly with the post-war housing boom, redlined areas saw stagnant or sluggish growth, widening the valuation gap year after year) so less tax revenue so less money for public services so increased vulnerability

Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN) shows what?

• Global south at more risk from climate change than Global North

what are the 3 Tenets of Climate Justice

• Giving voice to all countries in climate negotiations

  • COP 30

• Financial assistance to LMIC for developing countries → benefits of fossil fuel development shared

• Reduction of greenhouse gas

what are the three main types of fossil fuels?

1. petroleum (oil)

2. coal

3. gas

difference between energy conservation and energy efficiency

• Energy conservation—use less energy overall

• Energy efficiency—using the same amount of energy to do more work

health risks with coal

• Contains many toxic substances that can leach into groundwater

health risks with oil

dug up through fracking; Radioactive material and heavy metals found in the fracking water

what are the 3 overall health risks of fossil fuels? (CDE)

1. Extraction

   1. Oil spills, occupational hazards

2. distribution

   1. Noise of freight trains

3. Combustion

   1. Air pollution

rank the fossil fuel that emits the least CO2 per unit of energy created by its combustion from least to most

Natural gas, than oil, than coal is the most

solar energy risks

• Silica mining (for the top layer of solar panels) leads to silicosis

what is PM and what does PM10 vs PM0.1 mean

• PM = particulate matter

  • Coarse (PM10)

  • Fine (PM2.5)

  • Ultrafine (PM0.1)

the most effective risk-
reduction strategy for improving indoor air quality globally

clean cookstoves

what are the 5 main pollutants?

1. NOX

2. SO2

3. Sulfate aerosols

4. VOCs

5. O3

out of NOX, SO2, sulfate aerosols, VOCs, O3, which are soluble and which arent

NOX is not soluble, all the rest are

key characteristic of sulfate aerosols

• Highly reflective, leading to cooling impact on climate because suns rays bounced back

O3 equation

• NOx + VOCs + UV radiation = O3 (ozone pollution)

stratosphere vs troposphere and its relation to O3

• O3 in the stratosphere absorbs UV to stop skin cancer

• But when found in the tropospheric ozone, it can be bad for inhaling

what is the inversion layer

• Inversion layer occurs when colder air is wedged under warmer air

  • Traps air pollution closer to the ground, increasing human exposure

Etiology

• Large particles removed in nasal passage

• Water-soluble, gaseous pollutants removed in upper respiratory tract

• Pollutants that can reach the alveoli (lower respiratory tract) do the most damage

  • These pollutants that do so are water insoluble and very small

Three characteristics of air pollutants that make it more deadly:

1. Size

2. Solubility

3. Chemical composition

air pollution leads to chronic inflammation because

• Breathing polluted air (such as particulate matter, ozone, and other pollutants) introduces harmful substances into the lungs.

• These pollutants can trigger an immune response, causing inflammation in the lungs and airways.

• Repeated, long-term exposure can lead to chronic inflammation, potentially damaging tissues and contributing to diseases such as asthma, COPD, cardiovascular disease, and lung cancer.

accomplishment of NAAQS

NAAQS brought down PM of air pollutants since the 1970s.

Radiation

• process by which energy is emitted from a source and propagated through the surrounding medium

• Electromagnetic radiation

• Electromagnetic radiation—transmission of pure energy without mass via photons

• frequency of the wave

Number of crests that pass in one second

what does infared and ultraviolet mean

• Infared = below red

• Ultraviolet = above violet

• Everything emits EM radiation

• Everything emits EM radiation

• Non-ionizing vs ionizing radiation

• Non-ionizing means radiation with sufficient energy to cause atoms to vibrate, but not enough to remove electrons

• Ionizing radiation is enough to remove electrons from atoms, creating ions

ionizing radiation examples

• X rays and gamma rays

• alpha and beta particles

• Flight attendants and pilots have the highest occupational risk of cancer—-why?

• Flight attendants and pilots have the highest occupational risk of cancer because flying causes an increase in radiation since closer to the sun

• ALARA stands for what, and what 3 things to accomplish this?

• ALARA = As Low as Reasonably Achievable

  • Time - Only spend as much time near the ionizing radiation as necessary

  • Distance

  • Shielding

    • Lead aprons

what to be ocnsidered a greenhouse gas?

• A molecule must be able to absorb infrared (IR) radiation emitted by Earth's surface to be considered a greenhouse gas.

Temperature decreases with height in the troposphere—-why?

• The Sun heats Earth's surface.

• Earth's warm surface heats the air directly above it.

• As you move higher away from the surface, the air becomes cooler.

• Therefore, temperature decreases with increasing altitude.

what contains the ozone layer

stratosphere

• Climate is your personality, weather is your mood

• Climate is your personality, weather is your mood

• Why venus is hotter than mercury even though mercury is closer to the sun:

• Lack of an Atmosphere: Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and gets intense direct sunlight. However, it only has a thin exosphere. It cannot hold onto heat, so warmth quickly radiates back into space 

• Runaway Greenhouse Effect: Venus is covered in a dense atmosphere made of about 96% carbon dioxide, plus clouds of sulfuric acid. Sunlight passes through the thick air and warms the ground, but the heat cannot escape back into space 

TLDR: venus can absorb the sun’s heat much better than mercury

Density function

• Density function measures a variable on x axis and probability of it occurring on Y or frequency

The greenhouse effect

• The warming of the atmosphere that occurs when heat emitted from earth (longwave infrared radiation) is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases. 

Residence time

• how long a GHG molecule influences global temperatures

GWP (global warming potential)

• amount of atmospheric warning caused by 1 ton of GHG compared to CO2

what are the 6 key greenhouse gases?

1. H2O

2. CO2

3. Methan

4. NO2

5. O3

6. CFCs

what greehouse gas has the lowest GWP and what has the highets

H20, CFCs (fluorinated gases)

some natural sources of Natural sources of GHGs:

• Wildfires

• Wetlands

importance of ozone layer

The ozone layer is important because it acts as a planetary sunscreen, absorbing 97% to 99% of the sun's dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation—specifically all UVC and most UVB rays—before it reaches the Earth's surface

anomaly

• Anomaly—deviation from average conditions

The Ice-Albedo feedback Loop

1. Rising temperatures or shifting weather melt snow and sea ice.

2. Darker underlying ocean water or land is exposed.

3. More solar energy is absorbed rather than reflected.

4. The local or global temperature rises further, causing more ice to melt (a positive feedback loop

• The Earth emits longer wavelength radiation than the Sun —-why?

• The Earth emits longer wavelength radiation than the Sun because its surface temperature is much lower than the Sun's surface temperature 

Greenhouse gases are the cause of modern-day global warming because

1. Scientists have understood the physics of the greenhouse effect since the 19th century

2. There is strong evidence that CO2 contributes to global temperature

3. There has been an unprecedented rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 in the past century that coincides with the rapid increase in atmospheric temperatures

4. Climate model simulations only reproduce the observed modern-day warming when taking into account human GHGs

SSP

• SSPs are future sociopolitical and socioeconomic conditions that lead to changes in GHG

Clausius-Clapeyron relation

• Warmer air holds more water vapor

• This means more water in the air so more rainfall

how does Clausius-Clapeyron relation explain why global warming leads to increased floods?

• More water vapor in the atmosphere can lead to heavier precipitation when conditions are right.

• This increases the potential for intense rainfall and flooding.

key health effects of climate change

1. Heat

2. Air Quality

3. Water Quality

4. Flooding

5. Vector-bourne diseases

• climate penalty

• Warmer temperatures promote ground-level O3 formation

• The gains from the clean air act that decrease O3 emissions is offset by these warmer temperatures

why does global warming lead to waterborne diseases

• Warmer waters—-Waterborne diseases can be a result of global warming because warmer waters means more favorable conditions to promote proliferation of pathogens, 

• flooding carries pathogens—-Changes to the hydrological cycle can also affect water quality—heavy precipitation increases runoff of pathogens

• Droughts also increase concentration of pathogens

CSOs

• CSOs: Combined Sewer Overflows

  • These are wastewater systems where sewage and rainwater are collected in the same pipe

  • During normal conditions, does not pose a health threat

  • But when theres a heavy rainfall, raw sewage and industrial waste drains directly into rivers because theres too much water in the pipes

HAB

• harmful algae blooms

  • Droughts lead to warmer and saltier waters which can lead to HAB

  • Also through heavy rainfall leads to more N and P runoff in waterways leads to HAB

• What is the most-prevalent tick-borne illness?

Lyme disease (from a deer tick)

• What is the most common mosquito-borne illness in the US?

• West nile virus

• How does climate change lead to more vector-borne diseases?

• 1. Warmer temps increase incubation period for malaria

• 2. More outdoor exposure

• 3. More rainfall is more breeding grounds for mosquitoes to lay eggs in water

• How climate change influences food safety?

• Warmer temperatures—more spoilage

• Rising carbon dioxide can direct influence nutritional content of more food

  • It can reduce the concentration of important nutrients, particularly protein.

Enhanced greenhouse effect

1. The Human Enhancement: Human activities—primarily burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), deforestation, and intensive agriculture—release massive amounts of extra greenhouse gases into the air. 

2. The enhanced greenhouse effect is the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change and carries major consequences