Planet Earth and Your Health
As we mark Earth Day, it’s worth considering how the planet we call home directly impacts our health. Safe water, clean air and nutritious food are fundamental to human health. Without public health measures, we would not be able to enjoy the rest of what nature has to offer. Protecting our personal health is inseparable from protecting the planet.
In fact, some of the oldest public health programs and our most life extending accomplishments addressed contaminated drinking water and safe food. In 1855, Dr. John Snow demonstrated that cholera was a waterborne disease from drinking water contaminated by sewage. By the late 1800s, Louis Pasteur recognized how microscopic bacteria and viruses could spread disease through drinking water. Soon after, the introduction of water filtration coupled with the use of disinfectants like chlorine to treat drinking water became one of the greatest public health achievements in history. People were living longer because communities were distributing safe, clean drinking water. These breakthroughs put an end to some of our most contagious and deadly diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
Over time, a network of laws and regulations continued to protect our drinking water, our food supplies, and our air quality. The New York State Department of Health and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation were created to prevent bacteria, viruses and chemicals from getting into our bodies and reduce the sources of these contaminants in our environment.
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the New York State Department of Health and local health departments work together to regulate public drinking water supplies, requiring water suppliers to monitor hundreds of contaminants and address sources of contamination.
Public health laws also ensure clean water at our public swimming pools and bathing beaches and swimming pools through regulations that require environmental controls including disinfection and filtration of pools and monitoring of beach conditions to keep people out of the water until potential contamination is addressed.
Food safety programs led by the New York State Health Department in partnership with local health departments regulate and inspect restaurants to make sure that food served doesn’t contain bacteria or other pathogens that can make people sick.
These efforts are what we call environmental health–programs that have evolved alongside the challenges of becoming an industrialized society. Environmental health staff assess human health impacts of environmental damage from industrialization and play a key role in remediating historical contamination. This work protects our waterways, restores fisheries and reclaims lands previously considered waste sites.
This year, for the first time, the state was able to relax some fish consumption advisories allowing women and children to eat some fish from the lower Hudson River. This milestone was made possible through New York State and Federal programs that require environmental monitoring and controls to protect our natural resources.
This Earth Day, let’s recognize the often unsung efforts behind the safe water, air and food that we have come to expect as a modern society.
Remember to take a moment to get outside and take in nature’s health and beauty with the advice from the State Health Department. Doctor’s orders.
New York State Health Commissioner
Dr. James McDonald
