Research as an innovative tool in the field of environmental health

Abstract

Research increasingly demonstrates that the environment is a contributing factor to the emergence of a number of diseases. Environmental risk factors are inherent in the processes of production and arise in different stages including in the extraction of raw materials, in the production of materials, in consumption and as well as in the environmental waste generated in production. All these factors have a serious impact on public health. This article is three-fold, thus, addressing research in the field of environmental health emphasizing prevention and mitigation of exposure to current risk situations in the environment, highlighting the methodological challenges that researchers face in the sphere of environmental health due to an increasing number of variables related to exposure and risk. Finally, the need for an interdisciplinary team utilizing an inter-sectoral approach and the participation of professionals in charge of action research are explored in this article. The contributions of research on Epidemiology, Toxicology, and Risk Assessment are also assessed and discussed.