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Ireland’s Environment – An Assessment 2016
124
Many of the environmental threats to our health are
associated with our lifestyles and available choices. Our
behaviours and consumption patterns clearly cause stress
to the environment, leading to consequential poor health
outcomes (for example, burning smoky fuels to heat our
houses affects local air quality and people’s health). A
proactive approach to environmental protection, partly
through regulation but also by changing how we live, will
deliver a safer, healthier place for us to live now and into
the future.
“…a healthy environment is a
prerequisite for good health.”
Dr Margaret Chan,
Director-General, World Health Organization
Figure 8.1
Health Model (Source: EPA)
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CORE
ENVIRONMENTAL
NEEDS/SERVICES
FOR WELLBEING
& HEALTH
ENVIRONMENTAL
EXPOSURE
PATHWAYS
ENVIRONMENTAL
SOURCE OF HARM
TO HEALTH &
WELLBEING
ENVIRONMENTAL
HARM SOURCE
CATEGORY