Question

4. You are a member of an international organisation concerned about the environment The organisation has asked you to write a report on pollution in the nearest town or city.
Your report should include:
a brief account of the kind of town or city it is-residential, industrial, etc.
the main causes of pollution
your opinion of how successfully the town or city is dealing with the problem
your own suggestions for improvement​

Answer 1

Explanation:

Each pollutant has its own health risk profile, which makes summarizing all relevant information into a short chapter difficult. Nevertheless, public health practitioners and decision makers in developing countries need to be aware of the potential health risks caused by air and water pollution and to know where to find the more detailed information required to handle a specific situation. This chapter will not repeat the discussion about indoor air pollution caused by biomass burning (chapter 42) and water pollution caused by poor sanitation at the household level (chapter 41), but it will focus on the problems caused by air and water pollution at the community, country, and global levels.

Estimates indicate that the proportion of the global burden of disease associated with environmental pollution hazards ranges from 23 percent (WHO-1997) to 30 percent (Smith, Corvalan, and Kjellstrom 1999). These estimates include infectious diseases related to drinking water, sanitation, and food hygiene; respiratory diseases related to severe indoor air pollution from biomass burning; and vectorborne diseases with a major environmental component, such as malaria. These three types of diseases each contribute approximately 6 percent to the updated estimate of the global burden of disease (WHO 2002).

As the World Health Organization (WHO) points out, outdoor air pollution contributes as much as 0.6 to 1.4 percent of the burden of disease in developing regions, and other pollution, such as lead in water, air, and soil, may contribute 0.9 percent (WHO 2002). These numbers may look small, but the contribution from most risk factors other than the "top 10" is within the 0.5 to 1.0 percent range (WHO 2002).

Because of space limitations, this chapter can give only selected examples of air and water pollution health concerns. Other information sources on environmental health include Yassi and others (2001)