/Home The US Environmental Protection Agency and its state equivalent agencies are the primary agencies responsible for environmental protection. However, many of the federal agencies have roles in the protection of the environment as it relates to human health threats. For example, within the federal Department of Transportation, hazardous materials transportation is regulated; the Food and Drug Administration regulates food safety; the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (within HHS) is responsible for environmental health related issues associated with Superfund sites. Below is a "map" of the federal and state agencies that play significant roles in environmental health.
A. Environmental statutes and regulations may be promulgated and implemented on a state, federal, and sometimes even local level.
B. Most environmental statutes are media-specific, such as air, water, soil or food. C. As with occupational health statutes, states must adhere to the federal environmental protection statutes. States may promulgate more stringent, but not less stringent, statutes and regulations. D. A range of environmental "right-to-know" statutes and regulations exist. Store-bought foods are labeled - this is an example of a consumer "right-to-know" requirement. Other right to know examples include: select air and water contaminants are monitored and reported (by zip code) as part of the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory and made available to the public (via the EPA website and other modes); through the Clean Air Act, employers storing, handling, disposing, and/or transporting hazardous materials must now create and report the "worst case scenario" for accidental release of those chemicals; and the Safe Drinking Water Act now requires that water providers list the contaminants found in your drinking water and send this information to consumers in their water bill. - Advocacy involves advocating for a risk management option(s) on the part of a community.
- Case advocacy is well known to professional nursing in their role of advocating for individual patients and families to solve problems and/or secure needed services around their care.
- Class advocacy, on the other hand, is less inherent to professional nursing.
- Class advocacy is overtly more political and focuses on changing the system of opportunities to further the interests of a group or community
- Advocacy of this type is aimed at changing policy, institutional systems and norms, laws, or patterns of resource allocation to improve the health of the group or community.
- Advocacy aimed at social change can be examined from a typology formulated by Roland Warren (1963).
- Collaborative approaches (e.g. membership on planning and advisory committees) are characterized as citizens and authorities working collaboratively to reach an agreed upon goal.
- Campaigning approaches (e.g. lobbying) require that citizens, in this case a nurse, works singly or collectively to persuade authorities that new problem definitions and solutions are needed
- Contest strategies (e.g. protest marches) involve citizen organizing to force attention to community problems that they feel are being ignored or mishandled by authorities.
- Advocacy activity at the class or policy level is inherent in the practice of environmental health.
- Nurses are often the primary health care providers in poor and disenfranchised communities. Advocacy on behalf of these communities is critical to improving the health of these communities.
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Last Updated: 09/18/2007 at 10:25:20 AM |
