Public Health Biology Report: Sustainable Health and Determinants

This report analyzes a public health biology assignment focusing on the biological and social interactions affecting health. The assignment references an episode highlighting issues like asthma and obesity, linking them to air pollution and environmental factors. It discusses sustainability initiatives in Elgin, emphasizing community involvement and healthy lifestyle promotion. The report also examines the impact of mercury contamination and the importance of understanding health determinants, including economic, social, and physical environmental factors. The assignment critiques the need for effective interventions to improve public health and highlights the role of policy-makers in addressing complex health challenges. References from chapters on modern public health and determinants of health are included, underscoring the multifaceted nature of health and the importance of sustainable approaches.

Running Head: PUBLIC HEALTH BIOLOGY
PUBLIC HEALTH BIOLOGY
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The second episode suggests about the various ways with which the biological and social
interaction takes place. The episode starts by stating that in present condition one of the grave
issues that the children are facing is asthma (Loftus & Wise, 2016) and becoming obese over the
years. The episode states that the main reason of increasing in occurrences of asthma are the
increase in air pollution. The video more over projects light on the demolition of the Elgin clock
tower of the Elgin National Watch Factor, which was one of the most iconic part of the Elgin
town. The town’s history and legacy was also discussed, along with the production of the famous
watches.
The motto taken up by the Elgin people to make the town a sustainable place and make
the town use the resources in such an efficient way. The Healthy Sustainable Plan as had been
chalked out to plan a wider prospect of sustainability for the town people for the respective 30 to
40 years. The main way of providing sustainability to the Elgin Township was proposed and
conducted by the student body of the Elgin high school. The students had been one of the main
reason behind the success of the campaign. The conduction of surveys, promoting ways to
improve sustainability and provision of more ideas to improve the way of living had been very
helpful. Six months of consecutive work had been conducted along with two workshops,
followed by a main event proved to be the final step for the succession in their initiative of
making Elgin improve for the better.
Ways of promoting healthy eating and healthy lifestyle are also mentioned in the video.
Regular medical camps are conducted to determine the patient’s condition and further help in
guiding the patients for proper treatment. The episode also discusses the drawbacks of the
purposeful mercury contamination in the Onondaga Lake. Regular deposition of mercury from
the factory and deposition off various other economic wastes have led to the ultimate destruction

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of the lake water. The recognition regarding the need to understand the need of promoting good
health depends completely on the people and that improving health conditions cannot be
imposed on the people. Moreover, maintaining sustainable good health (Oleribe, Crossey &
Taylor-Robinson, 2015) without taking any aid from the government leads to complex
conditions.
As the episode suggests along with the informations taken from the chapter 2 and 3,
(Pilgrim, 2019) the determinants that are responsible for degrading health are due to the
economic, social and physical environmental factors. The determinants are observed to be
imposing different types of influence on the individuals as well as the health status of the
population. Development through understanding the nature of the health affecting factors and the
complexity it projects, are necessary to understand the impact that it projects.
Additionally, the most complex agenda or problem that the policy-makers face although
they have a wider range of opportunities by which they can help in implementing amongst the
population. However, it is only upto the population to accept the sustainable approaches to
improve health and living and use them to their most optimal potential. The episode even though
they help in understanding through numerous examples how to improve sustainability in health
conditions but proper interventions or initiatives were not displayed that may help in making the
population get more involved and help in yielding maximum potential.

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References:
Loftus, P. A., & Wise, S. K. (2016). Epidemiology of asthma. Current opinion in otolaryngology
& head and neck surgery, 24(3), 245-249.
Oleribe, O. O., Crossey, M. M. E., & Taylor-Robinson, S. D. (2015). Sustainable Health
Development Goals (SHDG): breaking down the walls. Pan African Medical
Journal, 22(1).
Pilgrim, D. (2019). Key concepts in mental health. SAGE Publications Limited.
Schmidt, H., Gostin, L. O., & Emanuel, E. J. (2015). Public health, universal health coverage,
and Sustainable Development Goals: can they coexist?. The Lancet, 386(9996), 928-930.
Todorova, S. G., Driscoll, C. T., Effler, S. W., O'Donnell, S., Matthews, D. A., Todorov, D. L.,
& Gindlesperger, S. (2014). Changes in the long-term supply of mercury species to the
upper mixed waters of a recovering lake. Environmental pollution, 185, 314-321.
Wabitsch, M., Moss, A., & Kromeyer-Hauschild, K. (2014). Unexpected plateauing of childhood
obesity rates in developed countries. BMC medicine, 12(1), 17.