𝙎𝙖𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙯, 𝙀𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙂𝘾𝙒𝙐𝙎


Health and environment are inter-related to each other. All the disturbed environmental conditions can cause bad health impacts either we expose to our home environment, workplace environment or societal environment.
All the environmental conditions either physical, chemical, biological, social or psychological can cause health impacts to humans when they exposed to these conditions via air, water, food, at work and during the leisure time. Environmental risk factors, contribute to more than 100 diseases and injuries. According to WHO, about 24% burden of disease and 23% deaths all over the world can be caused by exposure to environmental factors.
The worst impacts of environmental conditions range from acute illness to severe respiratory problems and even it can cause cancer. The problems arise due to air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, climate change, microbial contamination etc. when we inhale polluted air, many of the toxic chemicals, airborne particles enter into our body and can cause serious health problems. Every pollutant can cause health problems, according to its mode of action like radon contamination can cause lung cancer, particulate matter can cause severe respiratory problems and cardiovascular disorders etc. 
Same as air pollution, water pollution also cause detrimental health issues like, water contaminated with heavy metals cause neurological disorders, carcinogenicity, and birth defects, etc. Soil polluted with pesticides and fertilizers is also dangerous because residues of pesticides become a part of our food and enter into our body via food and become a part of the food chain too and cause endocrine disruption, depression, anxiety, leukemia. So we need to avoid excessive use of pesticides. I know, it is very much difficult to avoid the pesticide use because our population density is very much high.  But due to its health concerns, at least we have to move towards organic fertilizers. 
Climate change can also cause a number of problems, including cardiovascular diseases and respiratory problems, it is not only responsible for diseases, it is also responsible for a number of deaths. One of the best examples is the heat stroke 2015 in Karachi that was responsible for almost 2000 deaths. And the biggest issue of Pakistan is solid waste and stagnant water, which give rise to vectors and other pathogenic organisms. These vectors and pathogenic organisms give rise to vector-borne and other diseases. The most common vector borne disease is malaria, which is responsible for over one million deaths. After reading this blog you can understand how much of our environmental factors affect our health. The actual reason behind all these health issues is anthropogenic activities. Basically, in the greed of wealth we degrade our environment up to a limit which shows itself by harming us. If we don’t change ourselves soon, then the problem will become irreversible and it will cause disastrous effects. So, it is the need of time to change our attitude and consider our health and environmental health the most important thing rather than wealth and any other materialistic thing.
Saher Pervez
Dept. of Environmental sciences, GCWUS.
The Earth Needs Love.