Health, Environment and Safety: A Panacea for Survival.

     Our environment is a major determinant of our health status, A filthy environment is a true signal to the dangers of incessant health problem. Whereas a clean and green environment upholds safety and good health status to the inhabitants.

      Human Health has been found to have a direct interrelationship with our environment. Every human being desire to be healthy at all times, but this is a bit difficult, especially if we fail to harness our environment in a conducive manner for this to be actualized.Due to the domineering and unlimited powers of mankind, we always want to dominate and exploit our environment together with the other resources that are found in it.


     The goals and objective of nature in our environment have been suppressed and oppressed to a large extent that it is fading off in a dimension that can't be quantified. God created man and handed over the environment for him such that he could tend, harnessed, preserved, conserved and sustained the environment for future generation and even the one yet unborn.

     Sustainability here refers to managing and or maintaining the environment and its abundant resources for our children and the ones unborn to be part and or have a share of these resources. Health and safety plays a major role and are closely related in this phenomenon in so far as it relates directly to the existence of man and his survival in the environment.

      Our health depends to a large extent on the environment and is accorded the same importance as the constitutional right to life. This is because a poor, filthy, and putrid environment can affect the health of individual and can lead to subsequent death. It is therefore a fundamental right of man to live in a clean,safe and healthy environment.

     Consequently, the right to safety must be guarded with at least as much vigilance as the other basic freedom. Olaniran (1995) clears the air on this, when he opines that environment in which man lives is linked directly with the quality of life he enjoys, especially his socio-economic status. Environment here refers to all the conditions, circumstances and influences surrounding and affecting an organism or group of organisms.

     Safety, on the other hand refers to freedom from injuries and or hazardous events, or freedom from unsafe situations or freedom from accidents. Health in this context refers to a state in which an individual is perfectly adapted to his environment. According to World Health Organization (WHO) Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Good health is much more than an absence of disease. It involve a state of equilibrium between humans and the physical, biological and social environment.

     To be optimally healthy, a person must not only be physically fit but must be emotionally and socially stable. The physical health of an individual will surely determines his emotional health, his social stability and also his economic output. Franca Obi (2001).

     To support his biological, cultural and technological needs, man has continually altered the naturally occurring environment and created a new environment different from its original status and with more health hazards than ever before. Artificial chemicals are ubiquitous on our planet earth today, our homes,offices, market places, factories etc are all filled with aerosols,artificial sweeteners, cosmetics, dye inks, paints, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, refrigerants, synthetic fabrics etc.

     The harmful effects of some of these chemicals are grave, thus we bequeath to our descendants water laced with non degradable detergent and pesticides and land littered with imperishable plastic. What is required from each and every one of us is to live with greater wisdom than before, and to anticipate and guard against these environmental forces and situations, because the protection and promotion of health is ultimately an individual responsibility.