Environmental Health

Environmental health (EH) is concerned with preventing disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions and promoting behavioral change. It focuses on the direct and indirect causes of diseases and injuries, and taps resources inside and outside the health care system to help improve health outcomes. Environmental health risks can be prevented or significantly mitigated, by activities in various sectors in addition to health especially infrastructure, energy, and agriculture. The infrastructure sector has huge potential to improve health outcomes and save lives: water, sanitation, drainage, transportation, housing, and urban development. Many EH interventions are very cost-effective. Although the number of studies is limited, a review of available evidence of the effectiveness of measures outside the health sector in achieving health improvements found the estimated costs per deaths and disability-adjusted life year (DALY) saved to US$70,000 per DALY and more for some pollution control measures, with most measures costing over US$1,000 per DALY. Infrastructure, energy, and agriculture projects seldom try to monitor EH impact or maximize EH benefits.