These and many other environmental aproblems appear in today’s society – climate change, pollution of the earth, water, and air. These effects are also experienced by other live na- ture and by human beings. This is due to the fact that there is one particular group that seems to suffer the effects of environmental conditions more than others – the women. In the following article, I will explain how the environment affects women and how the health rights of women can be taken and enhanced around the world.
Environmental Factors Affecting Women's Health:
1. Climate Change and Global Warming:
Climate change is one of the major challenges affecting the welfare of the human health and the impact in woman health is alarming. Worrying consequences that women can come across because of climate change are storm surges, fresh water supply, air quality and food production which are additionally influenced by climate change effects on them. The above mentioned indirect consequences can aggravate preexisting illnesses and introduce new ones.
For instance, air quality standards which results from climate change has been found to cause not only asthma, heart diseases, and lung cancer. These conditions mainly affect women than men because these diseases commonly affect women. Moreover, population vulnerability is expected to improve as a result of climatic change since water borne diseases are also likely to improve due to poor water quality.
2. Pollutants and Contaminants:
Heavy metals, pesticide and endocrines disrupter chemicals which are pollutants and contaminant have been viewed to have been impacting the health of women. They get into the human body through the air we breathe, water we drink and the foods that we eat and can cause all sorts of diseases including reproductive disease, cancers, birth defects and many more.
In the case of the mandates for using these substances, the repercussions aggravate the situation since women are more likely to be as exposed to the substances during their pregnancies. During pregnancy, environmental hazards may greatly impact the health of both the mother and baby increasing the likelihood of birth anomalies, lagging in development, and neurological abnormalities.
3. Chemical Exposures:
Another environmental determinant of women’s health concerns chemical exposures. Females perform major tasks of cleaning homes and so they are more prone to be exposed to these chemicals through washing, cleaning or simply as a result of cooking. Some of these chemicals are known to cause breast cancer, reproductive disorders and developmental disorders.
4. Pesticide Exposure:
This is one of the most worrisome environmental issues and women are on the receiving end when it comes to pesticide exposure. Pesticides directly impact farmers who work on them — most of them women — and many of them suffer from infertility, spontaneous abortions and birth defects.
Also, most of pesticides are known to be endocrine disruptors implying that they can cause harming results on the body hormonal systems. All of this can lead to all sorts of health problems such as cancer, neurological disorders, and developmental problems in children.
What Needs To Be Done To Support women’s health?
Women’s health being of paramount importance globally, environmental factors prejudicial to women’s health hence must be tackled. This can be achieved through a combination of actions, including:
1. Reducing Emissions:
Mitigation of climate change and air pollution entails decreasing emissions of greenhouses gases as among the main strategies. This can be done through mitigation; switching to renewable electricity sources, increasing the energy efficiency level, and increasing green transport.
2. Regulating Chemicals:
Another important step to safeguard women’s health is to control the utilization as well as manufacturing of hazardous chemicals. This can include extending maximum allowed rates of pesticide, banning certain endocrine disruptors and increasing safety of personal care and cleaning products.
3. Improving Access to Information and Education:
Women need to be informed about the kinds of risks around them which can hurt them and how to avoid harm. It can include information on the chemicals, pesticides and pollutants that are hazardous and techniques to avoid contact with these.
4. Investing in Research:
Rosenthal cites the need to undertake research in order to evaluate the social, health, economic and psychological environmental factors affecting women and establish effective means of handling them. This could encompass supporting research on how polluting and contaminating materials affect the health of the communities and the environment; developing new products that can be used to help identify and destroy the materials and supporting the uptake of such environmentally sustainable farming and manufacturing practices.
Conclusion:
This paper demonstrates that, in order to appreciate the degree to which environmental factors affect women’s health fully, a comprehensive approach is needed. Some of the (_points_): Greenhouse gases – these environmental problems can be solved if individuals reduce their emissions of these gases Ways of dealing with chemicals – these environmental concerns can be solved if the various chemical used in industries are regulated access to information and education – these are ways through which the future of women and the planet can be shaped. For this reason, it is high time we stop to safeguard the exposure of women around the globe and the only way to do that is through protecting the environment.
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