In: Nursing
How would you define both the built environment and the social environment. Discuss how these two environments can affect health at the individual, community, and population levels.
1. Built environment is defined as the human made surroundings.
It includes transportation, building, money, education, health and
physical activity. Social environment is the physical social
setting in which the people live. It includes society beliefs,
customs, practices and behaviour.
2. Many factors can affect health of an individual which includes
hazards in the air, soil and water. This is due to the wastes from
agricultural and industrial areas, landfills and leaking
underground storage tanks. The other factors that affect health are
poor air quality which leads to cancer and damage to the
respiratory system and contamination of water leads to mild to
severe illness. The social factors that affect health are poor
social and economic factors affect health, stress can cause poor
coping, damage to health and premature death, some cultures think
obesity is health and encourage high birth rates in families.