Poison Control Centers

What are Poison control centers?  Well, its not too difficult to figure out that these centers help people with poisons.  But what does that actually entail?  Well, the poison control centers have a hot line, which is 1-800-222-1222.  This hot line is a universal hot line to all of the centers around the country, which can all be found at http://www.aapcc.org/about/united-states-poison-centers/ or on the map I will post on my blog.  There are 55 poison control centers across the country and they can all be located on this map.  So what does this hot line do?  Well, this hot line is available 24/7, and is able to answer all sorts of questions and provide information about poisonings.  According to the site http://www.answers4families.org/information-services/volunteer/news-articles/what-does-poison-control-do , things that the hot line can answer for people include questions concerning reactions to any kind of food and/or medication, concerns about mixing certain drugs, questions about food that has been recalled lately, questions concerning the identity of medication, concerns about the health of family, friends or yourself, and much more.  So what do the poison control centers do?  Hopefully after reading the above information you have a better understanding of what they do.  They are centers available to people to contact when they are concerned about poison, and the hot line above will connect you to the center in your local area.  Ohio is actually one state which contains two poison control centers.  One being located in Columbus, the other being located in Cincinnati.  According to http://poisonhelp.hrsa.gov/poison-centers/ , the center in Columbus is the Central Ohio Poison Center and the center in Cincinnati is the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center.  A definition of what a poison control center does can be found at http://poisonhelp.hrsa.gov/poison-centers/about-poison-centers/index.html.  It states "Poison centers provide educational services to prevent poisonings, as well as help during poison emergencies to people who need it."  However, if you are looking for more details about poison control centers, I hope there was some information in this blog that was helpful in giving a little more specifics to what these centers actually do. 

What is Environmental Health?

A simple way anyone would most likely "define" environmental health would most likely sound like the way the environment affects your health.  This is very true, but also a very broad definition.  This phrase doesn't give somebody a very good understanding of what exactly Environmental health is.  According to the World Health Organization, Environmental Health "addresses all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related factors impacting behaviors. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments. This definition excludes behavior not related to environment, as well as behavior related to the social and cultural environment, and genetics." (http://www.who.int/topics/environmental_health/en/) This definition gives the reader a much better understanding about environmental health because it gives specific ways in which environmental health is more than just a phrase talking about how the environment affects your health.  There are a lot of other factors involved, like studying to make a certain environment healthier for people, studying what specifically makes an area safe and/or unsafe to live in, etc.  When you type in on google what environmental health is, there are so many different things to look at to help explain what it actually is.  There are hundreds of links to help describe this for a reader, which is a good example of how complex environmental health really is.  There are so many areas of environmental health and what most people don't probably realize is that the environment part of environmental health doesn't necessarily mean "outside".  An environment can be an office building, classroom, hospital, or a factory producing large automobiles.  In this factory, there are a lot of health hazards possible.  For example, cars are being painted, and those fumes while the painting process is being completed can be harmful to ones health.  So there needs to be study done on this painting to figure out how to contain it and to do whatever it takes to not be harmful to the people working in the factory.  This is just one example of environmental health to show people that it doesn't necessarily need to be talking about outdoors.  There are many organizations dedicated to environmental health and keeping people safe, both indoors and out.  One example would be the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "CDC's National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) plans, directs, and coordinates a national program to maintain and improve the health of the American people by promoting a healthy environment and by preventing premature death and avoidable illness and disability caused by non-infectious, non-occupational environmental and related factors." (http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/)  This organization is completely dedicated to making sure the environment is safe for people to be in, and is a good example of how people actually help the environment and make it safe for people.  I hope this was a little more helpful in explaining what exactly environmental health is.  Yes, it is the way the environment affects your health, but there are also large organizations studying to make sure water is safe to drink, that the companies working big business are safe places to work, etc.  There is a lot of stuff going on about environmental health, I hope this helped.