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25 February 2021 COVID-19 Pandemic and Environmental Health: Effects and the Immediate Need for a Concise Risk Analysis
Sotirios Maipas, Ioannis G Panayiotides, Sotirios Tsiodras, Nikolaos Kavantzas
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic, as another disease emerging in the interface between animals and humans, has revealed the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations such as the One Health initiative. Environmental Health, whose role in the One Health concept is well established, has been associated with COVID-19 pandemic via various direct and indirect pathways. Modern lifestyle, climate change, environmental degradation, exposure to chemicals such as endocrine disruptors, and exposure to psychological stress factors impact human health negatively. As a result, many people are in the disadvantageous position to face the pandemic with an already impaired immune system due to their exposure to environmental health hazards. Moreover, the ongoing pandemic has been associated with outdoor and indoor air pollution, water and noise pollution, food security, and plastic pollution issues. Also, the inadequate infrastructure, the lack of proper waste and wastewater management, and the unequal social vulnerability reveal more linkages between Environmental Health and COVID-19 pandemic. The significant emerging ecological risk and its subsequent health implications require immediate risk analysis and risk communication strategies.

© The Author(s) 2021 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Sotirios Maipas, Ioannis G Panayiotides, Sotirios Tsiodras, and Nikolaos Kavantzas "COVID-19 Pandemic and Environmental Health: Effects and the Immediate Need for a Concise Risk Analysis," Environmental Health Insights 15(1), (25 February 2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/1178630221996352
Received: 21 January 2021; Accepted: 27 January 2021; Published: 25 February 2021
KEYWORDS
Covid-19
environmental health
One Health
pandemic
risk analysis
risk communication
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