Connecting Public Health to Sustainability

When I tell people that I am an intern at The Office of Sustainability, the first statement I usually hear is, “I thought you were a Public Health Major?” It is really hard to get people to understand the connection between the two. Most people think of of Public Health as workers at the Center for Disease Control or someone who is going to go to Medical school after undergrad. While some do become doctors and medical professionals, most Public Health majors work in administrative positions at hospitals, some go to Law School to become environmental lawyers, and a lot become policy makers for the government

The connection between sustainability and public health is very strong. Some of the courses one can take while getting a public health degree are, introduction to toxicology, introduction to public health,  and epidemiology. A big part of all these courses is policy making and grant writing. Students learn what the process is for writing a Public Health grants and make policy changes. College of Charleston passed an on campus smoking ban last year that went into effect this summer and Public Health students had a helping hand in creating the policy and getting it passed.

Epidemiology looks at diseases and how and where they begin. Some diseases that students study are diseases that would not be prevalent if people had access to clean water, i.e Cholera, or had access to healthier food . Sustainability looks at sustaining and prolonging existing entities, including human live. To sustain the live and improve the lives we have now, we must improve water quality, air quality and access to fresh food, all things that public health student learn about, and topics that the Office of Sustainability address.

            Public Health is about improving the health and well being of the public and (my own definition) sustainability is improving the public and environment so that the well being of the public can also improve.

-Avie Taylor, Public Health ’15