Our environmental exposures activity was very eye opening
because I’ve only done similar activities discussing social determinants of
health, not actual chemicals or radiation. I’ve always heard about lead,
asbestos, mold, and toxic cleaning supplies, but I’ve never thought about the
other exposures such as BPA, radiation from appliances, and the chemicals in children’s cereal. I’ve never
been much of a sugary cereal eater and never would have assumed it has the same
ingredient as Round Up, but it was a great lesson in realizing I need to
compare ingredients.
I genuinely enjoyed doing this activity in class because I
always like learning about topics that I don’t usually think about and need to
be a little better versed in. I really value environmental health and think
protecting the spaces we live, work, and play in is extremely important, but I
need to become more conscious about the materials surrounding me and the
products we choose to use as a family. I
do realize social determinants will play a large role in the different types of
home, work, school, and community exposures, and I feel ready to learn how we
can try to reduce the gap in quality of environmental circumstances between
socioeconomic statuses.
The cereal blew me away as well; I knew there was a lot of sugar of course, but glyphosate?! I immediately decided to start looking at labels more carefully... not just in cereal, but in granola bars as well.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed a trend between this post and your previous post: about how different SES can be exposed to different hazards.
One thing to consider is that many areas with a lower SES may have been built several decades ago, perhaps during the industrial revolution, during one of the World Wars, or even during civil wars and riots. Many of the more affluent areas are newer and more suburbia-esque and may not be located so close to industries. Then again, we have the Bay Area. In the Contra Costa area, we have all of the oil refineries and chemical plants yet in order to live here, we have to be in a much higher SES than that of anyone who lives in the Central Valley that might not have anything industrial.
There are so many gray areas! I do appreciate your insight and it really got me thinking about it more as well.
Hi Reid,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how eye opening the activity was. We came up so many environmental exposures as a class, yet, we only scratched the surface. It's concerning how many harmful exposures are around us.
The cereal case reminded me of years ago when babies in China developed abnormal head shapes/sizes after consuming baby formula with chalk powder in them. It's extremely heartbreaking...There are some serious harmful exposures for people in countries that have loose regulations and the poor ends up suffering more.
I'm also ready to learn how we can narrow the gap of environmental health this semester!
Amy