This research examines environmental health regulation in the United States and Canada. The approach to environmental health regulation in the two countries is compared and con trasted through considerations of historical development, moti vations for intensified legislation, and current and future trends.
Environmental health, as a concept, contains elements of both environmental protection and public health, although the scope of environmental health does not encompass the totality of either environmental protection or public health. An impor tant element of environmental protection, as an example, is the development and implementation of public policy to protect sen sitive ecological areas. The policies designed to protect areas such as Prince William Sound in Alaska from damage by oil spills is one illustration of an attempt at environmental pro tection. Protection of the environment in such a context, how ever, does not have a direct relationship to the health of human beings (so long as petroleum contaminated sea life is not consumed). Thus, policy initiatives designed to protect the natural environment where direct relationships to human health
1 2are not strong are not included within the concept of environ mental health.
Laws designed to insure the purity of ground water provide another example of environmental protection. In this instance, however, the link to human health is stronger. Polluted water supplies are a direct threat to human health. Thus, environ mental protection measures such as those designed to assure the purity of ground water are encompassed within the concept of environmental health.
Similar distinctions may be made with respect to public health. The AIDS (acquired immunity deficiency syndrome) cri sis is a serious public health problem in the late 1980s. As far as is known, however, neither the HIV virus which causes AIDS, nor its transmission is associated with elements of th...