Public Health: Prevalence of Environmental Chemical Exposures in the United States

Public Health: Prevalence of Environmental Chemical Exposures in the United States
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Public Health: Prevalence of Environmental Chemical Exposures in the United States
Introduction
Environmental pollution remains a major problem in society. Pollution by toxic chemicals poses a threat to public health. Close to all of our daily activities contribute to releasing these chemical hazards into the environment. They involve contributing some waste to the environment, some of which contain toxic chemicals. These chemicals have high persistence in the environment, contaminate soil, food, and water, and cause different health problems due to their toxicity. Chemical exposure occurs when a person has direct or indirect contact with the chemical. The exposure poses risks to various groups. First, the unborn and young children whose bodies are still developing. Second, pregnant women may experience low birth weight, prematurity, and stillbirths. Third, adults are often exposed to chemicals at their workplaces, among others. This article will review the aspect of chemical exposure as a matter of public health concern.
What is Happening and Why?
Although it is unknown how many chemicals are in the United States, the Chemical and Products database on chemical information in the United States contains thousands of toxic chemicals, with new chemicals being created daily. Most of these chemicals result from natural processes, industrial processes, and fossil combustion. There also exists commercially produced chemicals. The commercial production of chemicals has risen over the past years. In 2012, a study by the UNEP showed that the sale of commercially produced chemicals had increased by a factor of 25 from the year 1970, and production is expected to rise by 3.4 percent per year until 2030. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the USA is among the biomonitoring studies that show that the continued widespread exposure of toxic chemicals to humans throughout their lives negatively affects their health (CDC, 2013). Despite efforts conducted by various studies to evaluate the effect of chemical exposures on human health, human toxicity data for most of these chemicals is still lacking.
There are three (3) significant ways these chemicals enter the body. To wit; inhalation, direct skin contact into the bloodstream, and ingestion. The inhalation mainly occurs at workplaces when individuals breathe the substances in dust, fumes, vapors, and gases (Sah et al., 2019). The placenta contains many of these chemicals, affecting unborn children (Gaylord et al., 2020). A pre-polluted Canadian study discovered more than 100 chemicals in the cord blood of pregnant women, the majority of which were known carcinogens. In contrast, others often lead to reproductive and developmental issues (Defence E., 2013).
Most studies and regulations in the United States focus on the chemicals whose harmfulness has is already established. This regulation method is problematic since there is limited knowledge of the harmfulness and impacts of most of the produced new chemicals. This delay in action is because the effects of some of these chemicals often go unnoticed until later when build-up reaches critical levels. Another reason for this is because assessing data of the same takes a long time.
Impact of Chemical Exposure on Healthcare Delivery System
The increase in the number of harmful chemicals emitted into the environment daily in the United States and other developed countries contributes to an increased disease burden that healthcare systems have yet to comprehend fully. According to a recent Lancet review, the disease burden in the United States caused by exposure to hazardous chemicals costs more than $340 billion (Teressa Attina et al., 2016). Most of the chronic diseases that are on the rise for the past 40 years are majorly associated with chemical exposures. An example is the 'developmental obesogen' used to explain the rising cases of obesity among children (Bijlsma & Cohen, 2016). There is growth in the list of diseases caused by exposure continues to grow. They include; diabetes, infertility, cancer, neurogen...