Understanding Health Determinants and Environmental Risks
The Concept of Health and Disease Factors
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being. A malfunction in any of these areas determines an imbalance that can cause physical and mental disorders and trigger disease.
Factors Involved in Health
- Subjective Perception: Each person perceives their health subjectively depending on their way of being. With aging, individuals often have a greater perception of their health status.
- Genetic Inheritance: Every human being has a genetic inheritance received from their parents. This inheritance partly determines the health status of the individual; if genes have alterations, they may lead to the presence of pathologies.
Genetic and Congenital Diseases
- Genetic Diseases: These are diseases due to alterations in the genome where the genetic defect is the direct cause of the disease, such as in the case of Down syndrome.
- Predisposition: In other cases, the genotype does not directly determine the presence of the disease, but rather a predisposition to suffer from it.
- Congenital Diseases: A group of diseases associated with congenital conditions. These manifest from birth due to disorders produced during embryonic development or during childbirth.
Environmental Insults to Human Health
Environmental insults are classified into three types: physical, biological, and chemical.
Physical Environmental Insults
- Ionizing Radiation: This is a form of energy capable of modifying the structure of matter, which can lead to changes in our cells. They can have a natural origin, such as the sun, or an artificial origin, such as nuclear waste.
- Noise: Noise is unwanted sound that can cause sleep problems and behavioral issues, as well as hearing loss.
- Temperature Variations: Mortality increases when other diseases are complicated by sudden temperature changes and excessive cold or heat.
Chemical Environmental Insults
- Air Pollution: Human activities, especially industry, alter the composition of the air by adding compounds that affect our health. These substances include:
- Carbon Monoxide: A gas toxic to humans that causes shortness of breath.
- Sulfur Oxides: These affect the lungs.
- Nitrogen: Various nitrogen compounds.
- Water Pollution: Industrial and domestic use degrades water. Inorganic and organic pollutants harm biological systems; all of them are hazardous to health.
- Organic: Sewage, livestock waste, pesticides, and fats.
- Inorganic: Nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers, toxic metals, acids, and salts.
- Biological: Microorganisms that provoke disease.
- Food Contamination: Food is contaminated when foreign substances are present that may have adverse health effects, such as excessive additives or pesticides.