ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RISKS: PERSPECTIVES FROM RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND PRACTICE

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported that a significant portion of global disease burden is due to environmental risk factors: 24% of adult health problems and 34% of children’s health problems can be attributed to environmental factors (Pruss-Ustin, 2006). In the WHO report, environment was defined as “the physical, chemical and biologic environment to the human host and related behavior, but only those parts that could reasonably be modified” (Pruss-Ustin, 2007, p. 168). Health impacts from these risks are widespread, and include issues nurses encounter in the Western United States and around the globe. Chronic illness due to environmental toxicants is a growing public health concern. Asthma is a health condition that is impacted by environmental irritants in both children and adults. Climate change, an environmental condition affecting most areas of the globe, albeit in different ways, poses numerous health challenges for young and old. Healthcare itself creates environmental risk through the pollution it causes in daily practice in energy use, waste creation and use of toxic chemicals. Human-caused environmental disasters present a significant threat to public health as evidenced by the recent Gulf oil spill and the destruction of Japan’s nuclear reactor. For decades, nurses have addressed environmental health issues and their impacts on health in the workplace, in homes, and in communities. Nurses conduct research, develop educational approaches and community outreach related to environmental risk prevention and health promotion, and provide nursing care to the ill and injured following an environmental mishap.

In this symposium, nursing researchers and educators will focus on the global disease burden posed by environmental risks and environmental toxicant exposure. The presenters will describe approaches in nursing science to better understand environmental health risks, mitigation of risk, and educational and research methodologies. In the first paper, asthma risks as perceived by Hispanic caregivers will be explored using photovoice methodology. The second presenter will report findings from research conducted with acute care nurses, on their awareness of the environmental impacts caused by nursing practice. A conceptual review of nursing’s role in the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change is the topic of the third paper. The last presenter will discuss residents’ attitudes regarding participating in research after a community-wide environmental disaster and declaration of a public health emergency. Environmental risk is widespread and far-reaching, and thus difficult to consider as an isolated event or domain. These papers, while broad in range and approach respond to the significant disease burden impacted by environmental risk from a scholarly perspective.

Pruss-Ustin, A. C., C. (2006). Preventing disease through healthy environments. In W. H. Organization (Ed.). Geneva: World Health Organization.

Pruss-Ustin, A. C., C. (2007). How much disease burden can be prevented by environmental interventions? Epidemiology, 18(1), 167-178.