Impact of an Environmental Public Health Issue: Chemical Exposure

Chemical Exposure Issue
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Chemical Exposure Issue
Chemical exposure is an environmental public health issue that causes significant threats to the U.S. healthcare system. Supervisory authorities and health professionals should adequately handle the risk since it originates from different sources, including drugs, sterilizing agents, detergents, disinfectants, and solvents. They should impose or initiate changes in health policies to minimize chemical contamination and exposure. This paper discusses the impacts of chemical exposure on healthcare workers and potential policy change recommendations.
Chemical exposure is a significant risk in health facilities, leading to severe health impacts for healthcare workers. It can be a chronic or an acute environmental issue involving commonly used compounds, including anticancer drugs, formaldehyde, anesthetic gases, and organic solvents (Charlier et al., 2021). Hazardous chemicals significantly affect healthcare workers in hospital settings, causing low quality of life and health effects. Health workers can suffer time-extended or chronic exposure to low doses of chemical contaminants or acute intoxication in hospital working environments through water, air, food, or other products (Charlier et al., 2021). Consequently, the exposed health workers can get nerve damage, reproductive system issues, and hematopoietic pathologies.
Chemical exposure occurs at the local, state, and national levels since hospitals at varying levels suffer the risk. Wanner et al. (2019) explained that several resources and guidelines help hospitals prepare and manage chemical exposure at all levels. Hospitals should work with national, state, and local public health officials and emergency management to enhance response and preparedness since chemical exposure occurs at these levels (Wanner et al., 2019). Therefore, health workers should identify chemical risks before they occur at any of the three levels.
Chemical exposure continues to be a significant risk among health workers since they cause harmful effects and death. In 1995, chemical exposure to sarin gas caused over 5,500 patients to seek medical attention. As a result, the victims exposed health workers to the chemical risk, causing 110 health workers to develop mild symptoms from secondary chemical exposure (Wanner et al., 2019). Furthermore, 111 victims developed injuries, and 12 died. Therefore, hospitals should be well-prepared for chemical exposure and attacks to prevent moderate to severe injuries or deaths associated with chemical disasters.
Several current policies address the chemical exposure public health issue. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), a regulatory agency, currently revises health and safety standards to prevent chemical exposure in health facilities (Charlier et al., 2021). Similarly, NIOSH (the National Institute for Safety and Health) ensures healthy and safe working environmental conditions to prevent diseases and injuries associated with different causes, including chemical exposure. Moreover, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formulates policies and regulations for environmental protection and appraisal to prevent chem...