Environmental medicine, occupational medicine, and poisoning—Introduction
The environment, both occupational and beyond, can affect health in many ways, adversely as well as beneficially. While to date many of these effects have been well understood, most specifically for the work environment, the importance of the wider environment as a cause of ill health has been less well studied on the basis that there is not much one can do about general exposures, such as the weather, or specific events, such as volcanic eruptions, apart from deal with the direct effects. However, increasing awareness of the importance of the environment on health, such as exposure to air pollution (both indoor and outdoor) and the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of climate change, has resulted in better understanding of interventions that can improve health or at least abrogate deleterious effects. This section discusses these aspects in detail.