Environmental Health & Science Final Study Guide

The most widely supported economic strategy for combatting climate change is:

"Putting a price on carbon" through a carbon tax or "cap and trade" mechanism.

All of the following are conditions that meet the international emergency events database (EM-DAT) definition of a disaster EXCEPT:

10 or more people reported affected

Energy use varies greatly between the poorest countries with the least access to energy and the wealthiest countries with the greatest access. The ratio in per capital energy use between highest to lowest is closet to:

100-fold

The United Nations (2014) estimates that, by 2025, what fraction of the world's population could be living under water-stressed conditions

2/3

In a landmark epidemiological study of ambient air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities, Dockery et al. (1993) found a ____ higher mortality rate in the city with the highest pollution compared to the city with the lowest.

26%

According to the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study (lim et al. 2012), ambient particulate matter, one type of air pollution was responsible for over ______ premature deaths and _____ of global disability-adjusted life years in 2012.

3,200,000, 3.1%

The percentage of the US municipal solid waste stream that gets recycled grew from 6.4% in 1960 to ____ in 2012

34.5%

Approximately how many people lived in urban slums (I.e. without access to basic services such as potable water and sanitation) in 2013, according to United Nations estimates

863 million

Each of the following is a vector-borne disease that has expanded its range in recent years, in a pattern consistent with climate change contributions expect

Polio

WHat does it mean to be a professional? Members of professions do all of the following except:

Possess a high degree of dependence on the job and are closely supervised by others

All of the following except which are regulatory strategies used to control air pollution in the United States

Power plant cap and trade for CO2 emissions

The environmental justice movement has evolved to promote a framework for social change based on all of the following expect:

Protection of intellectual property rights in environmental research and development

Psychology-based strategies that have shown to be successful in promoting pro-environment behaviors including all of the following except:

Public humiliation

The landmark 1987 United Church of Christ report, Toxic Wastes and ____ in the United States, was the first national study of demographic disparities in the location of hazardous waste sites

Race

In a cohort study, epidemiologists usually begin with an exposed group, then assemble a non exposed group for comparison. This approach is good for

Rare exposures and common diseases

Air and water quality, climate, erosion, disease transmission, pest proliferation, and pollution are all examples of which category of ecosystem services, defined by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment:

Regulating

Even though spatial provides an accurate surrogate for measured exposure values, the ____ may be sufficient for exploratory analyses.

Relative ranking

All of the following are KNOWN potential pathways for the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from animals to human EXPECT

Resistant bacteria spread to community residents via bats and bacteria

In the United States, the modern environmental justice movement has roots in all of the following other movements except:

Right to free speech

The ____ of late 19th century U.S. and Europe, when the connection between urban planning and infectious disease transmission because recognized, was a formative stage in public health history

Sanitary movement

According to world health organization estimates (Prussia-Ustun et al 2014), inadequate water, _____, and _____ are responsible for 56% of the 1.5 million deaths per year from diarrheal disease.

Sanitation, hygiene

Children's exposure to pesticides used indoors, occupational exposure, and ____ are other public health concerns associated with widespread pesticide use

Self-poisoning

Recusing vehicle miles traveled in ______ is a primary way to reduce air pollution and the resulting health consequences.

Single-occupancy vehicles

In the early 2000s, the world's urban population surpassed to rural population for the first time: in the future, the fastest growth will take place in _____ cities in ______.

Small & medium-sized cities, Asia & Africa

The idea that the wealthy set the standard for what constitutes a high-status lifestyle, leading others to consume more, is an example of how ______ con contribute to environmental degradation.

Social inequality

Environmental psychology emerged in the 1960's out of the field of _____.

Social psychology

Water used as a drinking-water source is called ______?

Source water

For children, outdoor play may offer all of the following EXCEPT:

Taller height

Ambient concentrations of an air pollutant can be highest under conditions of stagnant winds and ____.

Temperature inversions

Each of the following is one of the U.S. federal emergency management agency's four types of mitigation measures expect

Tertiary prevention

Which international document was the first to popularize the concept of sustainable development?

The Brundtland Report Our Common Future (1987)

Good design can help prevent falls, a major public health concern for which of the following groups

The elderly

What key activity contributed to the beginnings of epidemiology

The quantitative observation of population health

Which of the following statements about sick building syndrome is true?

The symptoms people report in cases of sick building syndrome are usually nonspecific (such as headache, fatigue, dizziness, and rashes).

The type of technological disaster with the highest mortality rate (deaths per 100,00 affected) and death-injury ratio is

Transportation Each of the following is one of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency's each of the following is one of the U.S. emergency management agency's four types of mitigation measures except four types of mitigation measures except:

A dose-response is a relationship between exposure and health effect

True

Collectivism promotes the common good in achieving social justice

True

While disinfectants are effective in controlling many microorganisms, they react with natural organic and inorganic matter in source water and distribution systems to form potential cancer causing by-products.

True

The type of natural disaster with the highest mortality (mean number of deaths per event and deaths per 100,000 affected) and death-injury ratio is

Tsunami

The Global Burden of Disease Project, which gathers data on health and environment, and compares the amount of misery caused by a key list of health conditions, is an example of which modern ethics principle in practice.

Welfare

____ and ____, in that order, are processes through which genetic code in DNA is used to synthesize a protein in a cell.

transcription and translation

The idea that common capabilities can serve a variety of disaster situations is called

All-hazards preparedness

The current geological era is described informally as the Anthropocene, a time of human:

Alteration of fundamental Earth processes

Cockroaches are not known to transmit any serious human diseases but cockroach antigen is an important risk factor for the development of

Asthma

Environmental disease clusters are often difficult to confirm because

All of the answer choices

The epigenome responds dynamically to:

All of the answer choices

Features of green building design include:

All of the answer choices Attractive staircases to motivate walking Reduced use of hazardous chemicals Energy efficient measures Natural daylihgting

Safe drinking water requires a ______ approach, incorporating source protection as well as treatment.

Multibarrier

The timeframe of Environmental health has expanded to address ____ consequences of present practices.

Multigenerational

Attention restoration is the idea that:

Nature contact can help recover from attentional fatigue-improving focus, memory, and interpersonal interactions.

A cross-sectional study, if properly designed, should provide results that can be confirmed by cohort or case-control studies, however cross-sectional studies generally face the following major challenge

None of these answer choices

Neo-sustainability emphasizes which three rules?

None of these choices

In professional life, ethics is a ____ process of deciding what we ought to do or not do.

Normative

All of the following are examples of typical elements in professional codes of ethics except:

Obedience to a common moral law

Because scientists and academics need to maintain their ____, and their reputation for it, they are cautious in making claims about the implications of data for behavior and policy.

Objectivity

In low-income countries, the municipal solid waste stream tends to have more ______ and less ____ than higher income countries

Organic materials, paper

Critical ecosystem function supporting human health include all except:

PCB cycling

In general, which particle size category is likely to penetrate most deeply into the lung.

PM2.5

Global climate change contributes to each of the following except:

Peak petroleum production

The impacts of climate change on food and agriculture include all of the following except:

Peak petroleum production

Biophilic is the idea that:

People feel an innately emotional affiliation with other living organisms

Which of the the following is true regarding mental health in the context of climate change?

People with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia are at increased risk during heat waves.

Understanding food webs is important for environmental health in particular because

Persistent pollution can bioaccumulate or biomagnify up the food web

Which of the following in NOT generally considered a sustainable agriculture practice?

Planting GM herbicide-resistant seeds

In ancient times, our ancestors confronted which of following environmental health challenges

All of the answer choices Solid waste management; water sanitation; human waste management; food sanitation

Which of the following represents a unique, defining features of Environmental justice?

A focus on environmental exposures f vulnerable populations such as racial minorities

Landscape preference may have evolutionary origins. WHich of the following settings most closely resembles the habitat in which humans are thought to have evolved?

A gold course with rolling hills, scattered copses of trees, and ponds.

The "energy ladder" refers to a sequence of energy courses. In general, as a society moves up the energy ladder, each of the following increases except:

Adverse health impacts

All of the following are population sampling strategies used in exposure assessment except:

Best-case sampling

Anthropogenic emissions result from human activity while ____ emissions come from natural sources ( e.g. vegetation, volcanoes, deserts).

Biogenic

Which of the following methods is considered the gold standard for exposure assessment?

Biomarker measurements

Which of the following is NOT a fossil fuel?

Biomass

Childhood lead exposure is considered an environmental justice issue in the United States because data show that ______ (Wheeler & Brown 2013)

Black children have higher blood lead levels that white children.

All of the following are types of morbidity that typically follow disaster events EXCEPT:

Burns

An important difference between candidate gene studies and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is that:

Candidate gene studies begin with a specific hypothesis, while GWAS studies might not

While the more traditional biomedical perspective of toxicity is to focus on a singular physiological outcome, environmental psychology is concerned with a broad set of outcome including all of the following except:

Cause of death

In general, to i ants are classified by:

Chemical class, exposure source, or target organ

Integrated pest management was developed in the 1960's as a comprehensive approach to pest control using a combination of methods, with _____ as a last effort

Chemical pesticides

The introduction of DDT and other _____ pesticides into agriculture after WW 2 changed pest control and food production worldwide

Chlorinated

WHich of the following statements about the association between nature contact and socioeconomic status is true?

Community gardens in cities can provide poor people with nature contact and with other benefits such as fresh food and social opportunities.

Which of the following is an example how human indirectly drive environmental change?

Consumption Choices

Exposure refers to the mass of a contaminant that ____ a tissue barrier, while dose refers tot he mass of a contaminant that ___ a tissue barrier.

Contacts, crosses

Which of the four steps of the industrial hygiene paradigm is typically performed by industrial hygienists but not scientists

Control

THe following features of city park predict increased park use, EXCEPT:

Creative graffiti

A drinking water distribution system, with potentially hundreds of miles of pipes, is vulnerable to _____ and microbial ______.

Cross-contamination, regrowth

With the development of industrialization and urbanization in the 17th through 19th centuries, which of the following most contributed to heightened public health threats?

Crowding and substandard housing in cities

Assessing aggregate exposure to a series of compounds with the same biological mechanism is called ____ exposure assessment

Cumulative

A case-control study, if properly designed, should provide the same answer about the exposure-disease relationship as a cohort study, however case-control studies are generally more vulnerable to all but which of the following challenges

Difficulties in rare disease diagnosis

It was long though that _____ was the solution to water pollution, something we now know is not accurate, especially for hydrophobic chemical.

Dilution

A major health concern associated with burning solid and hazardous waste, either in one-burning operations and incinerators, is the production of highly toxic chlorinated compounds collectively called ____ that bioaccumulate in the food chain

Dioxins

Which of the following air pollutant is NOT expected to increase as a result of climate change?

Dioxins

All of the following expect which are examples of different levels at which toxicity can occur in humans:

Ecosystem

Which of the following is not an example of what sustainability in health care might look like?

Encouraging patients to bring their own healthy food from home during hospital stays

The fetal origins of adult disease hypothesis assert the early developmental exposures involved ___ that influence disease susceptibility as an adult

Epigenetic modifications

The process by which heavy nitrogen and phosphorus loading from human activities leads to algae blooms, increased microbial activity, and oxygen depletion in a receiving body is called ______.

Eutrophication

What is the usual way of quantifying the "greenness" of a neighborhood?

Extent of tree canopy

Responsibility for enforcing food safety regulations in US is spread across which combination of agencies?

FDA, USDA, EPA, state and local health departments

Atmospheric deposition and hydro modification are not considered non-[point sources

False

Because algae bloom can cause eutrophication they do not play an important role in the balance of nature.

False

Dr. Snow and epidemiology has no connection as it was not a technique. He used to sole the cholera health crisis in London

False

Pesticides can reach water-bearing aquifers below ground from applications onto crop fields and seepage of contaminated surface water

False

Predation, disease, food, shelter are destiny independent factors

False

There is no evidence to show that low-dose to DDT exposures are causing adverse human health effects:

False

Which of the following is true regarding public belief in climate change?

Family and friends are powerful determinants of a person's beliefs about climate change.

Following hurricane Katrina in 2005, millions of people were sheltered in manufactured structures ("fema trailers"). Which of the following contaminants raised major health concerns?

Formaldehyde

Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis are examples of which type of disaster

Geophysical

The popular herbicide used extensively on herbicide-resistant GM crops in the US was recently designated as a probable human carcinogen by the WHO

Glyphosate

Which of the following statements about green exercise is true?

Green exercise refers to ordinary forms of physical activity, such as jogging, carried out in outdoor, natural settings.

Utilitarianism is a modern ethics approach which asserts that the right act is that which maximizes the likely balance of _____ over _____.

Happiness, unhappiness

The modern environmental justice movement in the United States emerged in 1982 when a predominantly African american community in Warren, North Carolina protested the siting of what types of facility in their community

Hazardous waste landfill

The cumulative impacts of social vulnerability, environmental exposure inequalities an biological/physiological susceptibility combine to form ____ among racial/ethical and socioeconomic groups

Health Disparities

All of the following decreased after the creation of mini-neighborhoods in the crime-ridden five oaks neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio except:

Housing values

Although technological disasters typically have higher mortality and injury rates, which type of natural disaster accounts for the greatest public health burden, in terms of overall number of deaths, people affected, and cost

Hydro meteorological

There is evidence for health benefits for each of the following forms of nature contacts EXCEPT:

Hypnosis with nature cues

If mold is discovered in a building, which of the following is a key part of the response?

Identifying and removing sources of moisture

John Snow, a seminal figure in the history of public health, made his mark by:

Identifying contaminated water as the cause of a cholera outbreak in London

Climate change may contribute to water contamination through all of the following mechanisms except:

Increased chlorine concentrations due to water treatment malfunctions

Some of the familiar assumptions in biostatistics are not valid with spatial data. For example, biostatistics methods typically assume nearby observations are ______ while they are often _____.

Independent, correlated

All of the following are principal routes of contaminant exposures for humans except:

Injection

Energy, water, chemicals, knowledge, and labor are examples of food system _____.

Inputs

About 18,000 accidental deaths occur in homes each year in the United States. Each if the following accounts for a major proportion of these deaths EXCEPT:

Insects and rodent bites

Exposure mismeasurement or misclassification can also bias he results of epidemiological studies. Which of the following is true about exposure misclassification/mismeasurement

It is a common problem of case-control studies

All of the following are true about tropospheric ozone except:

It protects us from ultraviolet radiation

Scientific integrity, ______, and welfare are three modern ethics principles essential to environmental health

Justice

To date, research studies have shown that all of the following changes to the physical environment encourage healthy behaviors except:

Larger workplace parking lots

All of the following are among the most Commonly used classes of pesticides today except

Lead arsenate

The United States Clean Air Act mandates health-protective national ambient quality standards for which group of key outdoor pollutants ( i.e. the criteria pollutants)

Lead, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, ozone

Eye strain at work, falls in older adults, and seasonal affective disorder are all examples of how ___ affects health

Light

Health impact assessment provides an alternative approach to _____ for incorporating cumulative impacts into decision making

Locational studies

All of the following are major human diseases transmitted by mosquitoes except

Lyme disease

Major categories of attributes affecting vulnerability to disasters includes all of the following except:

Material recourses

In the United States, longitudinal studies of demographic disparities in hazardous facility siting provide evidence refuting the minority move in hypothesis, which is the idea that_____.

Minorities move to locations with environmental hazards because of lower housing prices and other market dynamics

Which of the following statement about climate change mitigation and adaption is true?

Mitigation includes both reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, and promoting the removal of greenhouse gases from the air through sequestration

Almost half of the US crop land is used to grow _____ of _____ . These can create economies of scale but also threaten biodiversity and are vulnerable to pest invasions and plant disease.

Monoculture, corn and soybeans

Define-Measure-Understand-Intervene-Set-Policy-Implement and Evaluate

are steps in the problem-solving paradigm used in. Risk Assessment/managment practice

Which of the following is NOT a significant greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming?

carbon monoxide

Organophosphate pesticides, which exert their neurotoxicity by inactivating acetylcholinesterase, can trigger a potentially lethal ____ in humans

cholinergic crisis

Which of the following is NOT a primary energy source?

electricity

Environmental chemicals that either activate the estrogen receptor or block estrogen from binding to the receptor are referred to as

endocrine disruptors

Nutrient (N and P) run-off into water bodies from agricultural fields where synthetic fertilizers have been applied excessively can create aquatic dead zones through a process known as ___________

eutrophication

People with ALDH2*2 polymorphism become flushed and experience hangover-like symptoms after drinking alcohol. This is an example of a

gene-environment interaction

The fact that children can bear a disproportionate burden of the adverse health effects of toxic environmental exposures is sometimes referred to as a ______ issue.

generational equity

Although DDT is banned in many Stockholm Convention countries because of concerns over chronic and ecological toxicity, the WHO (World Health Organization) supports its use in areas with persistent ________

malaria

Natural daylighting in buildings is associated with each of the following EXCEPT:

reduced risk of cancer

Of the following types of genetic variability in humans, which is the most common

single nucleotide polymorphisms