What is environmental health?
Environmental Health is a challenging and dynamic field that focuses on the preservation of natural resources and improvement of environmental factors, such as the quality of air, water, food, land, housing and other biological and chemical elements that affect the health and safety of the community.
Different agencies define “environmental health” in different ways. For local county health departments, environmental health may refer to food safety, septic systems, building permits, and public nuisances. Federal agencies may also be concerned about earthquakes, flooding, and quality of life issues like noise. EHIB works to protect the health of Californians by monitoring environmental contaminants and their related diseases, studying the impact of these contaminants on human health, and by informing the public about how to best protect their health from harmful pollutants. How can the environment affect my health? For better or worse, chemicals and other contaminants have become a part of every day life. They exist in every aspect of our lives even before we are born. Some contaminants, like mold, are found naturally in the environment; other contaminants (like chemicals) are created by humans. Hundreds of new chemicals are created every year. Exposure to large amounts of any subst
