Consumer and Environmental

Health

Consumer Choices and Public Health-CH.32

• Selecting Health Care and Services• Being Alert Heath Consumer• Strategies for Dealing with

Consumer Problems• Community Health

Selecting Health Care and Services-Pg.704

• Health care providers-a professional trained in the health fields.

• Physicians have traditionally been the backbone of the American health care system.

• Long-term health care facilities provide care for patients over an extended period of time.

• Health maintenance organization (HMO’S) are the most common type of managed care.

Being Alert Heath Consumer-Pg.709• Medical history-complete and

comprehensive information about immunizations and any health problems to date

• Good health care requires an active partnership between the health care provider and the patient

• As a health consumer, however, a patient continues to bear responsibility for his or her own care.

Strategies for dealing with consumer problems-Pg.713• Medical Fraud-It is illegal to make false claims,

promising that a medicine or medical treatment can do something that it cannot do.

• Advocate-Someone who speaks out for another person or cause.

• Another lucrative area for health quackery is weight-loss formulas.

• Among the people most susceptible to fraudulent treatments are those with chronic illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis, for which there is no cure or instant relief.

• Cancer and arthritis are two areas where many kinds of fraudulent and useless treatments are offered.

Community Health-Pg.717

• Public Health Agencies-Although public health is defined as a community health effort, the term community may have a variety of connotations.

• Epidemiology-The scientific study of epidemics.

• Famine-A widespread shortage of food.• The Department of Health and Human

Services is a federal agency whose responsibility is public health in the USA.

The Health of the Environment-CH.33

• Air and Water• Land• Being an Involved Citizen

Air and Water-Pg.726

• Air Pollution-Air pollution is the contamination of the earth’s atmosphere by substances that pose a health threat to humans, plants, and animals.

• Gases-We survive by breathing in a mixture of gases, chiefly oxygen and nitrogen.

• Disease-causing viruses and bacteria contained in the sewer does not become a serious health threat to humans.

• The Greenhouse Effect-Has serious and far-reaching consequences

• Millions of gallons of petroleum and crude oil are transported on the world’s major waterways every day.

Land-Pg.730

• Toxic Dumping-Each year, billions of tons of solid waste are dumped, burned, and buried in the United States alone.

• Hazardous Wastes-Any substances that are explosive, corrosive, flammable, or toxic to human or other life forms.

• Nuclear wastes are a radioactive, extremely dangerous collection of materials.

• Disappearing Forests-Developing nations in Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia are rapidly expanding in agriculture and industry.

• Responding to These Environmental Trends-As the population continues to expand onto undeveloped land, care must be taken to plan this expansion to avoid destruction of land features and an undue drain on natural resource.