Besides your daily decisions, there are other dominant factors which affect your health, namely heredity/genetic makeup, social environment, and available health care.
Heredity/Genetic Makeup
This refers to the traits you got from your parents as a product of the passing on of genes. Visible signs would be your eye color, height, and the rest of your physical features. Sadly, it also accounts for your tendency to acquire some diseases. This is why it is important to know your family’s history of disease to prevent the early onset of illnesses. So if you know your family has a history of breast cancer, it would be wise to visit your doctor regularly.
Environment
It refers to the total of one’s surroundings. It is wholly composed of the community you live in, the climate of your place, the school where you study, and the people you interact with.
Your geographical location is of great significance. People who live near the beaches orthose regions on the earth’s equator usually suffer from skin cancers due to heavy exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun.
Lastly, your social environment which is composed of the people you interact with can also have a great effect on your health even though you are not aware of it. If you live with smokers, you will eventually tolerate smoking and be a smoker yourself. But if you grow up in a health-conscious family, you will be influenced to value health the same way they do.
Available Health Care
One who lives in the urban areas where there are several hospitals and doctors and where there is a wider availability of medicines and medical good usually have their health being taken care more. Sadly, for those in the rural areas, there is rarely a medical institution that takes care of them, leading to earlier deaths.
Health Care System
A Health Care System is composed of all the medical care available to the country’s citizens, the way they receive the care, and the way the care is paid for.
Health Care Providers
Doctors are the primary health care providers. Specialists are those doctors trained to handle specific kinds of health matters. Other professions such as nurses, pharmacists, dentists, and physical fitness instructors also work in the health care field. All of these professions need each other to attain the ultimate goals of health care, namely:1) to maintain good health, 2) to treat arising problems, 3) to prevent occurrence of health problems.
Community Health
Community health, which is also known as public health, can be defined as the health condition of all the individuals living in a common area. Dr. C.E. Winslow defines this as “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, promoting health and efficiency through organized community effort for the sanitation of the environment, control of communicable diseases, the education of individuals in personal hygiene, diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of the social machinery to insure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health, so organizing these benefits as to enable every citizen to realize the birthright of health and longevity.”
In order, to maintain public health and protect individuals from diseases caused by a polluted and unsanitary environment, it is focused on minimizing environmental pollution through proper refuse storage, collection and disposal, proper excreta and sewage disposal, and the control of rodents and insects. Included in its goals is the sanitation of food.
Environmental Awareness
Environmental pollution can be defined as the degradation of the environment due to the accumulated damages caused by human activities. As the earth’s population increases and the degradation of the environment accumulates with time, its effects become more intense. Global warming, which is responsible for the drastic changes in our climate and the rise of our sea levels, is an example of this. And, if we do not become aware of the way our activities can affect the environment, we may not be able to stop the destruction of our planet.
Air Pollution
Each year, 800 million tons of pollutants enter the atmosphere. These pollutants consist of:
38% carbon monoxide
22% sulfur oxide17% particulate matter
14% hydrocarbons
9% nitrogen oxide
Just imagine, every time you breathe in, you have the risk of inhaling these dangerous chemicals in the air, affecting your health as well as those around you. Worse, the damage extends to ecosystem, ruining the earth’s ecological balance.
The incomplete combustion of automobile engines and mills as well as the gases emitted by factories and electric plants make up most of the pollutants in the air. Upon contact with sunlight, these chemicals form a brownish-gray or bluish-gray smog, depending on the amounts of ozone or nitrogen oxide present in it. This can cause respiratory problems such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, especially after being exposed to this substance for a long period of time.
Environmental pollution in the form of land pollution can also lead to the overpopulation of rodents and insects which carry infectious diseases as well as the propagation of bacteria which can contaminate our food. We can also attain respiratory diseases because of air pollution. For this reason, it is important to keep our environment free from pollution.
Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect
At the 1990 global climate conclave in Geneva, scientists from around the world officially warned government officials of an environmental disaster: that the atmosphere buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2), through the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, and the destruction of rain forests, is producing a long-term irreversible change in the earth’s atmosphere.
This change is called global warming which is the gradual heating up of the earth’s atmosphere. The mechanics of this warming are commonly referred toas the greenhouse effect because the buildup of carbon dioxide acts like the glass of a greenhouse, letting in and trapping the sun’s warmth.
The Effects of Air Pollution
Polluted air makes the eyes water, burns the throat, and irritates the respiratory system, causing coughing, chest discomfort, and impaired breathing. Carbon dioxide interferes with the ability of blood cells to carry oxygen and impairs the function of the central nervous system.
Ozone Layer Depletion and Ultra Violet Radiation
Ozone is a gas formed when nitrogen dioxide reacts with hydrogen. In the upper atmosphere, it protects the earth’s living creatures and vegetation from the intense ultraviolet radiation given off by the sun.
Chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs(chlorine, fluorine, and carbon, which are used as coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners and as propellants for aerosol spray cans) and halon(industrial chemicals containing bromine) break down the ozone layer.
Not only do the ultraviolet rays cause skin problems like cancer and rapid aging, it is also responsible for raising the sea level. At present, there is a huge and growing hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctica, causing the glaciers to melt and flow to the sea.
Save the Earth!
Though it may seem like there is no solution for it, the problem of air pollution can be under control if certain ways be changed. Here are some ways which you could do:
- Bicycling, walking, and using other nonpolluting transportation. This could also serve as an exercise which is good for your health.
- Avoiding open trash and incinerator burning.
- Reducing the use of volatile chemicals and cleaners at home.
- Planting a tree for the future and protecting the trees on your property.
- Testing your house for asbestos and radon.
- Avoiding the burning of refuse, leaves, or trash.
Noise pollution
The Filipino public is exposed to numerous sources of harmful loud sound that produce both auditory effect (hearing loss) and nonauditory effects (stress and psychological problems). At what point is noise so loud as to be dangerous?
The pressure of sound on the ear on the ear is measured in decibels (db), an arbitrary unit based on the faintest sound a person can hear. The hearing pain threshold is reached at about 120 decibels and eardrums may already rupture at 150 decibels or more. What’s noteworthy is that damage may occur with or without apparent symptoms.
What You Can Do?
Fortunately, you can reduce noise levels to protect your hearing by observing a few precautions:
- If you are a rock concert, be seated as far as possible from the band.
- Learn to enjoy listening to music at home with moderate volume.
- Put drapes over windows to reduce street noises.
- Use special ear plugs on the job, in crowds, at rock concert that remove excessive sound and can improve hearing.
- Do not talk too long on your cellular phones or telephones. If unavailable, turn on speakerphone.
Water Pollution
Every year, 14 billion pounds of sewage, sludge, and garbage are dumped into the world’s oceans. Also, 19 trillion gallons of waste enter the water system annually. As industrialization and population has also intensified. Have you noticed it in the seas, rivers, lakes, or canals you are surrounded with?
The problem of water pollution affects every nation around the world since water is able to transport pollution from one location to another; hence, the giver of life may also bring death not only to us humans, but also to nature as whole if the problem is left unattended.
Public water supplies come from rivers, lakes, underground waters, and various upland sources. You may wonder why the quality of water from remote upland sources tends to be excellent. It is because it often travels hundreds of miles through unpopulated areas. Unfortunately, this is not true of our river and lakes into which modern industrial society has discharge domestic sewage, industrial wastes (toxic chemicals), and agricultural wastes (animal excrement, fertilizers, insecticides), and liquid wastes from slaughterhouses, canning, and packing plants.
Moreover, the soil erosion caused by the runoff of precipitation from the land, referred to as slit provides a naturally occurring discharge into stream beds. Slit can keep needed sunlight out of water and smother the bottom dwelling organisms.
Oil spillage from more than 1 billion tons of oil shipped by sea each year is also a major source of water pollution. Oil spillage causes damage to plants and animals.
Efforts to provide safe drinking water for humans and safe surface water for fish, vegetation, and wildlife involve minimizing the contamination of ground water and surface water prior to consumption, and efforts will not be realized unless every one of us unites.
Save the Earth!
Protection from waterborne infection is achieved either through purification of water supplies or treatment of waste before it enters water bodies.
Strict enforcement of existing legislation and heavy fines could reduce contamination from industrial waste, agricultural waste, and oil spillage.
There should also be increased emphasis on water reuse, land restoration, forest replenishment, and topsoil conversation.
But these are things workable by more knowledgeable persons.
For the meantime, as students here are some of the things you can do to lessen water pollution:
- Save water
- Maintain your septic system
- Plant trees and shrubs to reduce soil erosion
- Protect marine animals from plastic trash dangers
- Tell your parents to buy biodegradable detergents
- Dispose all household chemical product safely, according to the directions
- Clean faucet opening on a regular basis
- Protect the environment at all times in your recreational use of water, land, and air.
Solid Wastes
These are solid or semi-solid by-products of human or animal activities that are useless and hazardous. These can be classified as:
| Garbage | decomposed wastes from food |
| Rubbish | Combustible (paper, wood, and cloth)or noncombustible (metal, glass, and ceramics) |
| Large Wastes | Demolition and construction debris and trees, dead animals |
| Sewage-Treatment Solids | Material retained on sewage treatment screens, settled solids, and biomass sludge |
| Industrial Wastes | Chemical, paints, and sand |
| Mining Wastes | Slag heaps and coal refuse piles |
| Agricultural Wastes | Farm animal manure and crop residues |
Management of Solid Wastes
Our government has engaged in different procedures in managing the solid wastes. Some of these procedures are the use of recycling. This has been used and continually explored by municipalities in recent years for it does not only facilitate disposal but also conserves energy, cuts pollution, and preserves natural resources. Another procedure is the use of sanitary landfills which is the cheapest satisfactory means of disposal, but only if suitable land is within economic range of the source of the wastes. Lastly, is the use of incinerators, where refuses is burned on moving grates in refractory-lined chambers.
How Solid Wastes is Processed
Proper Disposal of Refuse
The proper disposal and storage of refuse are very important since:
- Waste materials, when piled up, can be a breeding ground for rats and insects.
- They give off foul odors when they decay.
- They can serve a fire hazard.
- They are unsightly.
Waste materials should be stored by placing them in a container that is big enough to hold the amount of waste that may accumulate before each collection schedule and small enough to carry when filled with trash. It should not be too high so that it would not overturn easily.
Regular collection should be done in order to keep the waste materials from accumulating.
Incineration
After shredding and grounding the solid waste, it is placed inside a furnace which generates energy as the waste is burned.
Compaction
This process is usually used for metals such as scrap automobiles.
Composting
This process converts organic waste material into fertilizer by exposing it to bacteria.
Sanitary Landfills
These cells are first lined with calyx, a material that prevents toxic substances from being absorbed into the soil when it rains. Before putting the waste materials into the landfill, they are compacted and disinfected. They are then covered with earth.
Reclamation and Recycling
Reclamation is the extraction of salvageable materials from metals or paper. Recycling on the other hand, involves processing the “useless” material in order to transform it into a “useful” material.
How to Help
Lessen solid wastes.
You can do this by reusing plastic bags that you get from supermarkets or shopping centers. If you are buying only one or two items, just ask for the receipt and put the item/s in your bag. Also, make sure that you do not buy things that you do not need.
Segregate and recycle.
Always segregate your biodegradable and nonbiodegradable wastes. If you can further segregate your nonbiodegradable wastes, you can sell some items to junk shops. Even better, some malls now have monthly recycling fairs wherein you can sell used paper and bottles to get some extra allowance.
Do not litter.
Always put your trash in the garbage can. If you are going to have a picnic in an open area, make sure that you clean it up before you leave and dispose of your wastes properly.
Practice the 3Rs: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”