Kontakt 2013, 15(2):190-202 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2013.023

Environmental health: acute problemsBiomedicine - Review

Jiří Patočka^*, Friedo Zölzer

Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra radiologie, toxikologie a ochrany obyvatelstva

At present, the definition of the human health is not limited only to the absence of diseases or corporal disorders, it is interpreted as the state of complete corporal, mental and social well-being. To reach such a state is not easy though, and it is quite impossible to be reached without providing such environmental quality, where the concentration levels of pollution caused by human activity do not impact significantly human health, or rather they do not represent any unacceptable risks for the human health. Researches in the latest years clearly show the causal connection between human health and environmental pollution, and the impossibility to improve the health of the population without improving the environment where people live, work, rest and perform a plenty of other activities. The newly being constituted discipline of "environmental health" should deal not only with the studies of the particular environmental factors, that have a positive or a negative impact on human health, but should also deal with the evaluation of health risks. This is meant to be especially the assessment of the level and seriousness of the load the population exposed to the risk factors of the environment, work conditions and lifestyle faces. At present, there exist several exigent problems that biomedicine due to its relation to the environment should deal with, and that are related to the global environmental problems as well as to local problems.

Keywords: environment; risk factors of the environment; environmental health

Received: November 23, 2012; Accepted: January 8, 2013; Published: June 18, 2013  Show citation