The Forest and the Trees: How Population-Level Health Protections Sometimes Fail the Individual

Burdening individuals with the responsibility of reducing their own environmental exposures is not only unreliable in terms of health protection but also a contributor to environmental injustice.© Raga/Getty Images These photos show the air quality in Beijing on 1 January 2017 (top) in the midst of an “airpocalypse” smog emergency and on a clear day the week before. The notoriously bad air in many Chinese cities is slowly improving overall, but long-term exposures are still many times higher than World Health Organization recommendations.© Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images  This father and son in Shanghai wore masks on a day in 2015 when the city’s Air Quality Index was 2.3 times the limit considered healthy. Chinese residents often turn to breathing masks to protect themselves from dangerous air. Tight-fitting particulate respirators can effectively block airborne pollutants, but the more commonly used surgical masks are mostly useless.© VCG/VCG via Getty Images Volunteers loaded cases of free water into waiting vehicles in Flint, Michigan, as part of an effort to provide potable water to residents affected by lead contamination. Programs like Flint’s that use public funds to subsidize stopgap measures during an emergency appear to be on solid ground ethically—provided all residents have equal access.© Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images Residents in Flint learned about their new faucet-mounte...
Source: EHP Research - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: News Focus April 2017 Source Type: research