Chapter 6. Chapter 6: Environmental Health

How do factors that affect human health differ in developed versus developing nations?

Why You Should Care

Death rates vary between developing and developed countries because those populations face different hazards. Death rates due to environmental diseases are much higher in developing countries while death rates in developed countries are more likely due to “lifestyle” choices like diet and amount of exercise.

Developing countries face greater risks from environmental diseases primarily due to a lack of resources to prevent the modifiable environmental hazards. Programs like the GWD and malarial initiatives in Africa are often limited by lack of governmental funds.

Developed countries face greater risk from lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and lung cancer. Environmental diseases are less common because they have resources to spend educating and modifying the hazards of environmental diseases. However, some environmental diseases, such as malaria, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease, are spreading as climate change modifies the environment expand their range northward.

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