This Workbook will help community leaders, local organizers, and citizens groups assess environmental health problems in their neighborhoods and assist them in tackling these problems. It outlines an approach to identifying problems, gathering information, and establishing the community s priorities for improving the environmental health of its residents. Examples for Washington, D.C. serve as illustrations and possible examples. Residents of other cities and localities can find equivalent resources and data within their own communities.
Environmental health is part of public health.
It looks at the environment in terms of the pollutants, human behavior, and other factors that affect human health. We like to think of the environment broadly, because people and their surroundings interact and intersect in so many different ways. Focus on the Urban Environment Recent news reports and various urban management studies have shown that urban communities in the United States are victims of serious environmental degradation. Urban areas house large immigrant and minority populations who are often unable to participate in decisionmaking about their own living conditions. Overcrowding, poverty, stress and crime also contribute to the degradation of the environmental health of city residents.