MPH 632:Environmental Health | Brianna Rubio

I have to say coming into this class I knew absolutely nothing about chemicals. After everything I learned, I am now more cautious of the personal care products that I purchase, how I heat up my food, the water I drink, and the list goes on. I learned a lot about environmental health in general. To be quite honest, I wasn't looking forward to taking this class because I've never had interest in this topic. However, I am so glad that I did because we covered topics that I probably would have never learned if it wasn't for this class. This class definitely opened my eyes and helped me see how my life is affected by chemicals and toxins - something that I never considered. I think it's sort of funny because I now go to the store and look at the ingredients in mostly everything that I purchase (never did that in the past). In all honesty, I disliked the blogs on Blogger. I think they would have been easier to manage on Canvas and probably easier to grade without the need ...

These websites were extremely interesting to explore and I think they are great resources for people to use to help out when disaster happen. Where I live,  I was unfortunately unable to find organizations that offer volunteer services for disasters. I do know about American Red Cross and I'm aware of the d isaster service worker volunteer program on the California Office of Emergencies website because my uncle is a firefighter and has mentioned it to me in the past. As a future public health professional, it's very inspiring to volunteer and help those who suffered from an unfortunate experience. It's important to get involved and use what we learned in this class to help those in need. I wish there wouldn't be any disasters at all, but I am glad there are resources like such to encourage people to volunteer and use their abilities to volunteer and respond to the disasters that occur in our day to day life. I have donated clothing and food to disasters in the past but ...

What do you personally find more troubling about climate change?  What I find the most troubling about climate change is that it is not being addressed the way it should be. Climate change is happening and our political leaders need to accept this and do something about it instead of  denying it and promoting irresponsible corporate actions.  Politicians are elected to make decisions for the good of the people and by not addressing such a serious issue to our environment, is not making good of the people at all.  The effects of these decisions will be costly for my generation and those who come after.   As a public health professional, what do you think needs the greatest attention right now? We can educate on ways to help fight climate change such as using your energy wisely, consuming less, wasting less, etc. but I think demanding action is what needs to be done. We need to make political leaders understand that we are the ones who will inherit this...

The video was very interesting and I enjoyed learning ideas on how I can contribute to a zero waste life. In my home we use A LOT of zip-lock bags and we don't reuse them. I think it would be a great idea if we start reusing them. Most of the time we just use them for lunch to put our snacks in. A little wash and dry can make them go a long way. I am not sure how my mom will feel about this, but it won't hurt to give it a try. Recently, my friend has been slowly convincing me to start composting and I am really considering it. Composting reduces methane emissions from landfills and lowers my carbon footprint. Lauren Singer is very inspiring and learned a lot from her. I have actually made my own soaps and scrubs and I love it. I know exactly what goes into them and although they don't smell "the best," it makes me feel good knowing I am reducing exposure to chemicals from store bought personal care products. I would like to start expanding what I make and learn ...

1) Consider your workplace or a workplace of one of your family members.Are there chemical, biological, radiological or ergonomic issues? Using the industrial hygiene hierarchy of controls how might you address the issues? How are they being addressed in reality? Recently at work, there were some plumbing issues going on. A pipe from the floor above us was not properly working which caused the restroom that my department uses to overflow. Let me just say the smell was HORRIBLE. If feces exposure is a thing, then we were definitely exposed to that. The smell was so bad that we had to ask our manager to be moved to another office. This restroom was located next door to us therefore, we were really close. The water overflowed to the hallways and we had to wait for it to be cleaned up before stepping a foot outside our office. This was a big issue and I don't think it was addressed properly. The fact that we had to ask to be moved was not acceptable. I think our management should hav...