GPH 303 Quiz 1

Health Definition (WHO, 1948)

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not the mere absence of disease

Health definition etymology

Originates from the old english word “Hale”, meaning the wholeness of something

Determinants of Health

Genetics, income, education level, relationships with family/friends, social/economic environments, physical environments, and individual behaviors

Interdependencies

Interactions between physical environment, social environment, built environment, and human biology

Biological responses

Immune activation, stress responses, and metabolic changes mediate how environmental and social factors impact human health

Location

A fixed, measurable point on Earth (ex. coordinates, address, zip codes)

Place

A location charged with meaning, emotion, and understanding

Power dynamics of places

Reflections of power structures like capitalism, racism, patriarchy, nationalism, colonialism, heterosexism

Scale

The level of resolution used to view health (from body, household, neighborhood, community, city, to global), scales are connected and interdependent

Individual Health

Focuses on why a specific person develops a disease

Population Health

Focuses on why a specific group has high disease rates (requires understanding processes operating at a greater scale)

DPSEEA Framework

Developed by the WHO in the early 1990s to connect environmental changes directly to human health outcomes

DPSEEA stands for

Driving force, pressure, state, exposure, effect, action

Driving force

Root factors driving environmental change (ex. population growth, urbanization, industrialization)

Pressure

Demands placed on the environment (ex. Increased food demand, space usage, pollution streams)

State

Physical state or degradation of the environment (ex. loss of vegetation/wetlands, ecosystem damage)

Exposure

Direct human contact with environmental hazards (ex. flooding, dampness, pollutants, toxic substances)

Effect

Health impacts or damage (ex. health damages, property losses, economic costs)

Action

Interventions made at any stage (ex. structural fixes at the driver level, immediate fixes at the effect level)

Early Western Science

Views of Plato, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes enforced human dominance over nature

Early Public Health Pioneers

John Graunt, William Farr, Edwin Chadwick

John Graunt (1620-1674)

Used demographic data (London’s Bill of Mortality) to analyze disease patterns

William Farr (1807-1883)

Built on Graunt’s work, influencing the Liverpool Sanitary Act of 1846

Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890)

Linked poor sanitation directly to disease outbreaks; led to the Public Health Act of 1848

Industrial Revolution

Economic growth brought pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and over-exploitation

Charles Darwin

Theory of natural selection showed humans are not superior, but rather a product of common evolutionary forces

Sigmund Freud

Challenged human rationality, highlighting animalistic human instincts

Rachel Carson

Wrote Silent Spring in 1962, exposed the hazards of pesticides like DDT, showed how chemicals bioaccumulate through food chains up to humans, linking exposure to cance risks

Key Environmental Health Discoveries (1960s+)

Recognized workplace chemical risks, lead’s neurotoxic effects in children, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals causing infertility

Love Canal (Niagara Falls, NY 1940s-1970s)

• Hooker Chemical dumped 22,000 tons of toxic industrial waste into a canal sight, later covered with soil and developed into an elementary school and neighborhood

• Caused high rates of miscarriages, birth defects, chemical burns, chromosomal damage, and more

• President Carter declared a Federal Health Emergency

• Lois Gibbs organized the Love Canal Homeowners Association

• Led to the CERCLA Superfund in 1980 → Makes polluters pay for waste cleanups

Times Beach, Missouri (1970s-1980s)

• Waste oil contaminated with TCDD (Dioxin) was sprayed over 23 miles of unpaved roads to control dust

• 1982 river flood spread the toxic mud across town

• Toxins caused animal die-offs, severe human skin lesions, liver damage, joint pain, and elevated cancer risk

• CDC/EPA found 300 times the safe limit of Dioxin, the government bought out the land and permanently evacuated/demolished the entire town

Attention Restoration Theory (ART)

Natural settings allow cognitive recovery through “soft fascination” reducing mental fatigue

Biophilia theory

Humans possess an innate evolutionary connection to nature. Natural cues (flowing water, lush vegetation) historically signal safety to our biology

Harmful Triggers

Noise pollution, overcrowding, lack of green space, and urban heat island cause stress

Ecohealth

Systemic approach treating human health as an emergent property of intact, complex ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems actively suppress disease.

Lyme Disease Ecohealth progression

Ecological disruption → Biodiversity collapse → Vector amplification → Pathogen spollover → Ecohealth solution

Ecology levels of organization

Organism/Individual → Population → Community →Ecosystem → Biome → Biosphere → Ecosphere

Organism

An individual living entity capable of basic life processes

Population

Group of individuals of the same species living in a specific area capable of interbreeding

Community

Interacting populations of different species in a specific geographic area

Ecosystem

Living (biotic) organisms interacting with non-living (abiotic) factors (water, soil, climate)

Biome

A large regional community defined by climate, soil, and species (ex. tundra, desert, rainforest)

Biosphere

The global sum of all ecosystems; the zone of life on Earth

Ecosphere

The biosphere plus all non-living processes (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere)

Symbiosis

A biological interaction between two or more different species in which the organisms

engage in a specific relationship (mutualism, commensalism, parasitism)

Mutualism

Both species benefit (ex. Three Sisters garden where corn provides structure, beans fix nitrogen, squash blocks weeds)

Commensalism

One species benefits while the other is unaffected

Parasitism

One species benefits at the expense of another

Carrying capacity

The maximum population an ecosystem can sustain over time without resource degradation (can be altered or reduced)

Ecohealth and The Dilution Effect

Disruption and habitat fragmentation eliminate “dead-end” hosts, allowing disease vectors to hyper-infect competent hosts and spill over into humans (ticks to mice to humans)

Age-Sex structures

• Sharp pyramid: Represents a young, rapidly growing population

• Dome shape: Represents a stable population

• Pinched pyramid: Represents an aging, shrinking population

Life expentancy drivers

Historically increased due to more clean water, sanitation, vaccines, higher standards of living, increased awareness, medical advancements, safer jobs becoming more common such as desk jobs over factory jobs (urbanization and economic reasons)

Recent life expectancy drops

Biggest is covid-19, westernized diets have once increased life expectancy but recently may be causing a drop.

Line 5 Pipeline in the Great Lakes

• Managed by Enbridge, Wisconsin to Ontario through Michigan and Great Lakes

• Has spilled over 1 million gallons of oil across 29 leaks in its lifetime

• Niche expansion: Humans using industrial infrastructure to stretch energetic capacity beyond natural limits

• Systemic risk: Threatens ecosystem carrying capacity and risks essential freshwater services for populations

Competition

When species compete for the same resources, competition regulates population sizes, especially in overlapping niches.

Parasatism

Parasites reduce the fitness of their hosts, limiting the host population’s growth.

Predation and Herbivory

Predation regulates population growth by increasing predator numbers as prey populations grow. Herbivory similarly regulates plant populations.