Discussion #6 ( Environmental health promotion)

1. Answer the following:

a. List 3 things you could do in your home or apartment to save energy while using appliances.

b. Explain how high levels of air pollution can influence the frequency of bacterial diseases such as pneumonia or bronchitis.

2. Respond to two of your classmates. There is not a specific length for your responses, but you need more than an “I agree” or “me too” statement.

Respond to Elisha:

The first thing that I can do within my household to save energy while using appliances is make sure that my dishwasher is full before I run it, instead of running small loads at a time. Secondly, I can make the switch to energy saving light bulbs for all of my lamps and lighting fixtures; this includes not leaving the lights on as much. Lastly, I can put my cell-phone in an energy saving mode so that I do not have to charge it as often and save on power. 

Seven million people die around the world each year due to air pollution related diseases. The adverse effects vary with the kinds of pollutants and location of said pollutants. For instance, outdoor air pollutants like PM, NO2, and SO2 can increase mortality depending on where one is in the world (Carey, 2013). Another example is that one may be more prone to diseases such as pneumonia or bronchitis if there are around lots of industrialization, factories. Or one may be harmed too if they are round farms that use harmful pesticides for their crops. The detrimental effects include decrease in pulmonary function, increase of infections, increase in respiratory symptoms, acute exacerbations of COPD, onset of asthma, more hospitalizations, increased respiratory mortality, and higher prevalence of childhood asthma (Nishimura, 2013). As health educators, or as health professionals, we need to see what changes we can make in the industrial processes to keep air pollution from harming more and more people each year. 

Carey IM, Atkinson RW, Kent AJ, et al. Mortality associations with long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution in a national English cohort. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2013;187:1226-33. 

Nishimura KK, Galanter JM, Roth LA, et al. Early-life air pollution and asthma risk in minority children. The GALA II and SAGE II studies. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2013;188:309-18.

Respond to Alex:

a. One of the things I could do in my home is use a top-mounted freezer refrigerator rather than a side by side refrigerator. According to Energy Star (2020), a top-mounted freezer refrigerator will use 360 kWh compared to a 560 kWh for a bottom mounted refrigerator and 630 kWh for a side by side refrigerator. I could also use warm or cold water to wash my clothes as those options use less energy than hot water (American Cleaning Institute, n.d.). When buying a home, I would make sure that the house is properly insulated and that windows and doors are properly manufactured to decrease the loss heating and cooling within my home (Steffan, n.d.).

b. Air pollution can affect the body by attacking the immune, nervous, and gastrointestinal system leaving the body susceptible to bacterial diseases (Jiang, et al., 2016). Air pollution can also alter biofilm structure of bacteria which can increase transmission and reproduction of the bacteria (Purser, et al., 2020). This change in biofilm structure has been linked to surviving in the human mucous membranes and increased resistance to antibiotics (Hussey, et al., 2017).