My definition of environmental health has been largely
shaped by my experience of living in Malawi and working on the Water,
Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) team in a refugee camp with Jesuit Refugee
Service (JRS). Prior to working with JRS on WASH, I mostly linked the environment
to mental health – and the ways in which being outside positively impacts
mental health. Through these modules and my WASH experience, I’m reminded that
it is so much more – and that health is deeply intertwined with water, waste
management, air quality, etc. and how many disparities there are in health due
to environment.
Blog 21
1. I found some news on California's law that new homes must have solar panels on their roofs for energy sources. In Sacramento, local government is determining if homeowners can receive solar from off-site solar generators, or if it has to be from the homeowner's own home. If Sacramento approves off-site solar, it's likely that other cities would follow. One consideration is that on-home solar provides benefits of: extra energy bill savings per month, ability to keep lights on during a blackout, as well as less money invested overall into external off-site solar generators. The fact that solar panels can create energy that allows for power to be on during black outs (which could become more and more common as climate change makes fire season longer and more challenging) has an immense impact on health. For one, people that rely on refrigerators to keep medications like insulin cool, or who need CPAP machines to be plugged in, would greatly benefit from clean energy that ca...
Water quality is a big problem in many parts of Africa. There is either scarcity of water or the little that is available is contaminated.
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