M7.4 Local Environmental Services

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For the city of Morgan Hill, we correspond to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. There are two services that I believed highlight Environmental Health Services such as: ticks & Lyme disease and water testing for bacterial contamination.
Both Lyme disease and water testing are done in the Public Health Laboratory which assists in identifying infectious diseases, toxins, and biohazards. 

 There is another part that the SCCPHD focuses on which is health information. A few areas they are working on is safe and active transportation, emergency preparedness, healthy eating and active living, and tobacco-free living. 

 All of these are relevant to environmental health. For example, safe and active transportation focuses on finding safe routes to school and encouraging walking or biking to get to school. As a result, not only is it encouraging a better lifestyle, but by not using a car for transportation, a person's carbon footprint is smaller. As for emergency preparedness, we never know when natural disasters are going to occur. One of the directions given on the website in case floods occur is to "turn around, don't drown!" suggesting that people don't walk through flooded areas. As we learned in class, there can be toxins in the water from factories or (waste) fecal matter in the water that can be harmful to our health. These are just a few examples from the areas that Santa Clara County PHD covers through their initiatives.

 Overall, there appears to be an emphasis on maintaining the general public healthy through their immune systems and outside environments where we tend to be around the most such as our schools and homes.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 16, 2018 at 3:21 PM

    Hi Daisy,
    It is very interesting that the environmental health services test for bacterial contamination like Lyme disease. I agree, there is an emphasis on maintaining general public health through immune systems and outside environment.
    Thank you for your post!
    Kera

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 17, 2018 at 9:41 AM

    Hi Daisy,
    Thank you for sharing detailed information about the local environmental services provided in your county. I appreciate that your county focuses on health information in regards to safe and active transportation, emergency preparedness and healthy eating and active living. That is also great that they focus on tobacco-free living. It seems like your county is doing a lot to improve the quality of life for your community.

    ReplyDelete

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