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I’m Studying Environmental Health, And That Is *Exactly* Why I Am Voting
Oct 29, 2020
Vote like your life depends on it. For many, this isn’t just a rousing call to action—it’s real life. In this series, people from different jobs, backgrounds, and viewpoints share the impact this election will have on them, and the exact reason they’re voting in 2020. Because politics and wellness can’t be separated , especially this year.
I study environmental health . To put it plainly, I study how the physical, built, and social environments that humans live in affects our health. Studying environmental health in the context of today’s (political, social, and physical climate) brings me an uneasy awareness.
Every day I learn how a compromised environment threatens my health, yet I see very few politicians attempting to rectify (or even properly acknowledge) this on a systematic level. The knowledge of what will happen if our environmental situations get worse while seeing the environment continually deteriorate intensifies my desire to do what I can to help reverse the course of damage to our poor planet.
The health of the environment clearly, and categorically, impacts the health of humankind. We live in tandem with Mother Nature. When we damage the environment, the environment damages us in return.
Diseases such as asthma and cancer have been linked to the increases in pollutants. Heat islands , or urbanized areas that experience hotter temperatures due to buildings and overdevelopment, are associated with heat-related illnesses like stroke. People who look like me—Black people—get the worst exposures (and health outcomes) despite contributing less to the environmental issues in this country. We often talk about health disparities, yet do not talk about how the inequitable environmental burden faced by Black and brown communities fuel many of these disparities.
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