1
Promoting Community
Environmental Health
It is clear what it means to improve the health of a child or of a family. But
how do you improve the health of the environment?
When we talk about environmental health, we mean the way our health is
affected by the world around us, and also how our activities affect the health
of the world around us. If our food, water, and air are contaminated, they
can make us sick. If we are not careful about how we use the air, water, and
land, we can make ourselves and the world around us sick. By protecting our
environment, we protect our health.
Improving environmental health often begins when people notice that a
health problem is affecting not just one person or group, but is a problem for
the whole community. When a problem is shared, people are more likely to
work together to bring about change.
In this chapter we tell the story of a community health organization in
the town of Manglaralto, Ecuador, where health workers stopped a cholera
epidemic. Afterward, people in the community found ways to work together to
overcome other health problems as well.