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Environmental Determinants of Health

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Sign marking polluted water in the Torrens River & Lake of South Australia, 2009. Photograph from 'Yellow Monkey Binguyen' used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Photo accessed from Wikimedia Commons.

Florence Nightingale encouraged people to take responsibility for the quality of the environments we live in & for the world around us. She clearly demonstrated how environments either support health or foster disease. Her advice is as relevant today as it was in her lifetime. Following in her footsteps, NIGH seeks to increase current awareness of this theme.

Nursing the Environment

aynla The environment has great impact on health and nursing of which nurses play important roles in preventing exposures to and reducing risks from such hazards. Florence Nightingale even stressed that the nurse may manipulate the environment for the health of his or her patient. But what does a modern nurse do to help the ailing environment we have now?

AYNLA International participated in the celebration of the Earth Day through the Saving Planet Earth Expo & Conference held last April 23-25, 2010 at Trinoma Mall Activity Center where it showcased and exhibited socially responsible programs and advocacy campaigns of different companies and organizations focusing and promoting environment protection and saving the planet earth, with the aim of creating awareness as well as to raise consciousness among Filipino people on current environmental issues and conditions.

Nurse Luminaries light the way to improved environmental health

By Marian Condon

In 2005, Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of nearly 500 organizations working to protect health by reducing health-care-generated pollution, launched The Luminary Project (TLP) to spotlight stories about nurses who advocate for safe hospitals, clean communities and children born without toxic chemicals in their bodies.

For the past year, I have worked as a nurse consultant on The Luminary Project and have been touched by the stories told on the project’s Web site, many of them about members of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. I would like to highlight the work of just a few of these environmental heroes. Perhaps their stories and the resources available on the site will inspire other nurses to get involved.

International Scientists Urge New Safety Rules for Cell Phones

Public health concerns and scientific evidence for risks from cell phones and other wireless devices has been published in the journal Pathophysiology. Read more...

Medical Director Takes Stand on Hazards of Electromagnetic Pollution

Dr Thomas Rau, Medical Director of the world renowned Paracelsus Clinic in Lustmühle, Switzerland says he is convinced ‘electromagnetic loads’ lead to cancer, concentration problems, ADD, tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, arrhythmia, Parkinson’s and even back pain. At Paracelsus (http://www.paracelsus.ch), cancer patients are now routinely educated in electromagnetic field remediation strategies and inspectors from the Geopathological Institute of Switzerland are sent to patients’ homes to assess electromagnetic field exposures.

Exposure to electromagnetic fields is not a new phenomenon. However, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), environmental exposure to man-made electromagnetic fields has been steadily increasing as ever-advancing technologies and changes in social behaviour have created more and more artificial sources. Everyone is exposed, both at home and at work, from the generation and transmission of electricity, domestic appliances and industrial equipment, to telecommunications and broadcasting.
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Focus

GBC-mapparium2

Visitors at the Mapparium in the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, Massachusetts. This was the site to launch Dr. Jean Watson's Million Nurse Project—during the 2010 International Year of the Nurse—to radiate heart-centered Love, Caring and Compassion through individual and collective global meditations. Photo Courtesy of the Mary Baker Eddy Library.