PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Clean air and water are necessary for good health but we must take care to protect these basic building blocks of health. Public policies and pollution laws are important. So is individual and community action. While we all admire the people who do big things to protect the natural environment, we all have a role to play. Recycling programs, composting and finding ways and finding ways to reduce our waste are small things we can all do to make a big difference.

In addition to the natural environment, things in the human-built environment also affect our health. Some of the main influences in the human-built environment include safe housing, safe workplaces, community planning, road design and public safety.

What can you do?

Think about how your physical environment affects your health and then ask:

• What can I do to take better care of the natural environment?
• What can I do to make my home or workplace a healthier place?
• Think about how the physical environment affects people in your community and then ask:
• How can we help people in our community who live in unsafe ot unhealthy environments?
• What action can we take to encourage policy-makers to protect the environment?