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Environment and health 

Environment and health
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date: 26 February 2021

The term ‘occupational and environmental health’ includes any act of emission of any substance, likely to be hazardous in nature, which is either not originally present or is present in a higher concentration than normal in the natural atmosphere. Most air pollutants are generated from human activities (e.g. energy, transportation, industry, agriculture), but natural events in the living (e.g. methane emissions in wetlands) and non-living environment (e.g. volcanic eruptions) also contribute to atmospheric air pollution, although their relative importance has declined since the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern fossil fuel-based economies. Pollutants may be classified as (1) primary (emitted directly into the atmosphere) or secondary (formed in the air through chemical reactions with other pollutants and gases); (2) indoor or outdoor; (3) gaseous or particulate.

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