PHE443 - Quiz 4: Environmental Health Policy and Environmental Justice

A policy that sets a minimum amount of a pollutant that could be released by an industrial plant's smokestack is an example of:

Emissions Standard

The public play no significant role in agenda setting or the policy cycle

False

Environmental Health Policies are the only types of interventions that will be successful in reducing or eliminating exposure to an environmental agent

False Education, voluntary reduction, and source replacement are all examples interventions that do not require policies in order for them to occur.

Laws are only effective when regulatory agencies are given powers to enforce

False Other options exist for a policy to be successful such as taxes, quotas, and providing funding.

Preventing the use or release of an environmental hazard is always the preferred course of action, but sometimes it is impossible to prevent the hazard from being released. If is not possible to prevent the hazard from being released, several other preferred options exist before remediation and treatment. Rank the examples in order from most preferred to least preferred by selecting number 1 for most preferred:

Ranked in numerical order: 1 - After being informed their chemical causes a health problem, manufacturer X reduced the amount used in making the product 2 - A manufacturer discovered people were having to buy more of their electronic devices because the battery kept dying and people were not replacing the battery because they could not open the device easily. Since the battery contains harmful metals and a suitable alternative could not be found, Manufacturer A instead started designing the device so the battery could be easily replaced when it stopped working. 3 - Instead of throwing plastic bottles in the trash, they could instead be recycled 4 - No recycling stream exists for chip bags, it is therefore better to dispose of it in a landfill than burn it in your backyard.

Environmental health policies are often difficult to establish because of challenges associated with proving the relationship between exposure and disease development. Which of the following examples does not reflect a challenge often faced in establishing the cause-effect relationship in environmental health?

Symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and vomiting associated with exposure to E.coli only take a few days to occur.

Requiring catalytic converters be installed on all vehicles is an example of:

Technology Standard

While it is true that everyone is being exposed to multiple environmental pollutants from multiple routes of entry, what makes the exposure to the pollutant worse for some environmental justice communities is:

They unfairly live in close to more sites releasing harmful toxics

For an environmental health issue to get set on the agenda and make it through the policy cycle, the environmental health issue often needs strong social support and an environmental exposure that resulted in a health crisis

True

It is often necessary for Executive Branch agencies to write regulations, which have the same power as statutory laws, because statutory laws typically are composed of broad concepts that lack sufficient detail to describe how the law should be applied to all relevant situations

True