Environmental Health Issue: Food Security and Safety in Haiti

Assessment 2: Environmental risk assessment Template
Please use this template to develop your assignment 2
(Food safety and security)
Assessment 1: PUBH6002: Student name, Student ID
Note: Keep the headings and subheadings (Bold) and erase the instructions.
Write a report of the environmental health issue impacting your chosen region
addressing the following key points:
1 Introduction
Food safety is defined as the formulation, management and holding of food which are meant to prevent
food borne sickness and injury. Furthermore, Food security means availability, accessibility and affordability
of food to all the nationals of the country (Kniel & Spanninger (2018)). The harmful outcomes of human
activeness on the environment is perceived as environmental issue, which is leading to environmental
degradation. Contemporary environment issue includes pollutions, resource depletion, degradation of
environmental surroundings and climate change. Environmental degradation is mainly concern with the
reduction of resources such as air, water and soil . Several protection program for the environment are
being practised by the individual, organisational and government level in order to maintain the balance
between human and environment. This environmental issue is causing environmental health issue like
chemical pollution, disease- causing microbes, poor water quality and lack of access to health care. In this
report, the chosen region is HAITI, one of the countries with highest level of economical degradation in the
world. Due to lack of healthy environment, the Haiti population is facing several socio-economic and health
consequences. Food security and safety in Haiti is being discussed in this report. This country is currently
devastated with food supply and the proper system that arrange it (Sareen (2021)). There is a uncontrollable
growth in hunger due to instability in politics, overall increase in the cost and price of the living in a country.
The following report is further going to discuss about the causal chain attribution through DPSEEA
framework for Food security and safety in Haiti, vulnerable people affected by this problem, Gaps in
management and legislation that triggers the health issue and the role of existing health agencies.
2 DPSEEA Framework
DPSEEA framework was planned to assist decision making on activity to bring down the load of disease
by depicting environmental health issue from their base origination through their health consequence and by
distinguishing field for intervention (Harusi, Mitani, & Taniguchi (2020)). Inside this framework, the driving
force bring up to the constituent which motivates and force the environmental processes concerned. This
includes population growth, economic development, technological development. This driving force results in
the development of pressure on the environment. These are generally explicated through human line of work
or utilisation of the surroundings. Pressure originate in at all phases in the supply series- From initial source
extraction, through processing and distribution, to final uptake and waste unleash. In context to this
pressure, the state of the environment is generally get changed. They are complex and impact almost all
prospect of environment (Adilov et.al., (2021)). They are expressed in magnitude of natural hazard,
availability of resources, level of pollutions. The risk to health may occur when the people are exposed to the
natural hazard. Thus the interaction between the people and the hazard inherent in the environment is
refereed as Exposure. It includes target organ dose, absorption dose. Exposure to the hazard leads to the
health effects, which vary with the intensity and magnitude of the type of hazard to which the people are
exposed. The effects are loss of well-being, morbidity and at last mortality. As a result of this suitable actions
are taken like Hazard Management, environmental improvement, educational awareness raising, economic
and social policies, cleaning technologies, etc.
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2.1Driving forces:
Driving forces for the food security and safety and in Haiti is: -
 Low agriculture productivity: - An important part of Haiti economy is Agriculture.
Majority of farmers operates on small scale farms and have access to less than two
hectares of lands. An important part of Haitians food and nutrition security is continuously
afflicting by soil erosion and environmental degradation (Tay, Mohd, Teh, & Koh (2022)).
Haiti is highly affected by the climate change and they lack the proper equipment to deal
with it. Haiti is affected by the high sea level, string storms, and hurricanes. With
increasing chance of flooding and landslides sue to deforest ion and poor soil quality
makes the Haitian people unprepared for the upcoming challenges. Cholera infected
about 819,000 people and almost 10.000 death. In 2018, north part of the country,
delayed the harvest and increases the food insecurity.
 Poverty: - Haiti is under poverty due to many factors like limited employment
opportunities, inadequate usage of resource, corruption and bad governance, never-
ending conflicts, instability in poverty. Poverty affect the social discriminant of health and
develops unfavourable conditions under which people might experiences fallible food
supply. However, spending large portion of their income on food, many people remains
food insecure due to their insufficient, fluctuating and irregular incomes. Haiti people
living in poverty face difficulties in access of safe, sufficient and nutritious food. Poverty
leads to financial restriction which lead to purchase and consumption cheap, low grade
staple foods, and majority carbohydrates and fats which have low nutritional value.
2.2Pressure:
Driving forces leads to changes in the environmental state thus causing pressure. Poor quality water
affects the environment in a negative way as it affects the plant and animal life. Both plants and
animals rely on fresh water from ground, contamination in water harm both plant and animals. Thus
degrading the agricultural products or poor performance of agricultural sector. Climate change is
leading cause of droughts and flood which results in increased salinization of coastal aquifers. this
climactic conditions also dropped the agricultural productivity. Due to food compermization, many
people in Haiti have adopted negative cropping strategies like forced to sell their livestocks, eating
seeds and several more which increases vulnerability among the women, children and old age
people of Haiti with disabilities.
2.3State of the environment:
Haiti is situated at the island of Hispaniol due to which environment have very bad impact on food
and water quality. Eutrophication is one of them. Through agriculture facilities and other facilities
Nitrates and phosphorus stream off to the water, and this inflow leads to speedy increases in algae
growth. Oxygen present in the water get consumed by the Algae, making it difficult for other marine
animal to survive and creates a dead zone beneath the water. This effect is called Eutrophication.
The Data has shown that 54% lakes in Asia, 53% in Europe, 48% in North America and 28% in
Africa are eutrophic (Abt, Incorvati, & Robin (2022)). Marine life is also affected by the garbage and
trash patches in the oceans. Plastic bags and aluminium cans creating suffocation and starving
marine animals. Mammals and bird eats that fish and are then starved, bringing deterioration on yet
other ecosystem. Globally 800 species are affected by marine debris. 60% all sea birds have eaten
plastic pieces. Another evidence proposed by the scientist are that corals that come in contact with
have 89% chance of contacting diseases. This all are affecting the agricultural sector and marine life.
Consumption of all this product (agricultural and marine) will risk the food consumption of Haiti
people. High level of deforestation which result in vulnerability to soil erosion, landslides and flooding
and loss biodiversity that are source of food to humans.
2.4Exposures:
Poor quality of food and water is highly exposed as Industrial and agriculture waste like, organic
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solvents, heavy metals, petroleum products from the wastage site comes directly to the nearby water
resources like lakes and streams. Human and animal waste from sewage carry harmful microbes,
making drinking water very contaminated and keep the Haitian people at high risk. Treatment can
help in removal; of many contaminant but leave behind By-products such as trihalomethanes which
is very harmful (Knowlton, Sorensen & Lemery (2021)). Agricultural land due to deforestation or
damage or due to climatic change like temperature, rainfall and humidity also exposes the land and
affect the food safety and security. Deforestation and climate change can leads to diseases like
malaria and also loss of biodiversity which serves as a food source for the people.
2.5Effects (Health and additional environmental effects):
Due to poverty, people have low nutritional inputs and less access to the healthcare facilities and
for these reason they are not able to fight against several deadly disease. Contaminated water and
poor sanitation are connected to transmitting of diseases, such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery,
hepatitis A, typhoid and polio. Incompetent implementation of urban, industrial and agricultural.
Absence of nutritional food and poor climatic condition can lead to various life threatening diseases
like HIV, Tuberculosis and several more. Exposure to high doses of chemicals leads to skin
discoloration’s or nervous or organ system damage.
2.6Actions:
Agriculture need to increases investment for raising productivity, improving food nutritional security
and enhancing domestic production of food.
Deforestation and its resulting consequences need to be considered and on priority basis an
initiation of reforestation should be taken. Other sources for fuel should be introduces to decreases
the cutting of trees.
The Nutrition Strategic Plan, wanted to modify the health and nutritional condition of the population,
regarding vulnerable groups, by prioritising the areas : preventing malnutrition, improving
information systems for nutrition, improving inter sectoral and intra- and inter-ministerial
coordination, addressing nutrition-related diseases, protecting nutrition in case of emergencies and
rendering applied research and training in the field of nutrition
3. Include the concept map of your DPSEEA framework
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