Environmental Health

Abstract

Abstract This chapter, “Environmental Health,” examines the importance of global efforts to address environmental risks that have the potential to adversely affect human health, analyzing how global health law and policy have been employed to address globalized environmental health threats. Public health and environmental conditions are inextricably linked, with a safe environment underlying global health; yet global environmental risks are not felt equally throughout the world. These inequitable public health threats disproportionately impact low- and middle-income countries and vulnerable populations, including children, older persons, and racial and ethnic minorities. Global health law is crucial to ensuring justice in environmental health. Increased understanding of the global nature of environmental determinants of health has given rise to global efforts to regulate environmental pollutants, seeing international law as necessary to protect global public goods—including access to safe drinking water and the promotion of clean air. Addressing these environmental health concerns, international environmental law, human rights law, and global health law contribute to responding to globalized environmental risks to public health, but the continuing advancement of these legal responses will require World Health Organization leadership and a “One Health” approach across institutions of global health governance.