Final answer:
Environmental health is concerned with preventing disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions. Traditional hazards related to poverty affect developing countries, while modern hazards prevail in industrialized countries. Overall health and wellbeing are deeply affected by the environment, including the development of certain types of cancers.
Step-by-step explanation:
Environmental health is concerned with preventing disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions and promoting behavioral change. It focuses on the direct and indirect causes of diseases and injuries, and taps resources inside and outside the health care system to help improve health outcomes.
Environmental health risks can be grouped into two broad categories. Traditional hazards related to poverty and lack of development affect developing countries and poor people most. Modern hazards, caused by development that lacks environmental safeguards, such as urban (outdoor) air pollution and exposure to agro-industrial chemicals and waste, prevail in industrialized countries, where exposure to traditional hazards is low.
Overall health and wellbeing are deeply affected by the environment even in urbanized areas. Many types of cancers, which are collectively the leading cause of death in higher-income countries, have environmental influences.