What’s the number one littered item on U.S. roadways? Cigarette butts.

And that’s not much of a surprise given a new survey from Legacy, an advocacy group focused on ending youth smoking, and Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, which found that more than 44 percent of those polled who’ve smoked admit to having dropped a cigarette on the ground. And nearly 32 percent of responders who’ve smoked have dropped a cigarette out of a car window.

Cigarette butts do way more harm than simply adding to unsightly litter. The butts include the cigarette’s plastic filter, which pose risks to animals and biodegrade only under extreme conditions. And cigarette butts contain carcinogens that can leach into soil, as well as chemicals that are poisonous to wildlife and can contaminate water sources.

Legacy and Leave No Trace have developed a suite of materials to help push people to action and reduce the butt litter.

• An infographic on the dangerous materials in cigarette butts
• A toolkit to help spread the word about what people can do to rid the earth of cigarette butts
• Television and radio Public Service Announcement

Watch the PSA "Toxic Litter Everywhere" below.

Among the impacts of the East Coast’s Hurricane Sandy have been tens of thousands of uprooted trees, contaminated water and tons of compromised food. A recent article in the Journal of Environmental Health Natural recommends that environmental health become an integral part of emergency preparedness and that community stakeholders take a role in merging the two.

David Dyjack, DrPH, associate executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, and a co-author of the study, spoke with NewPublicHealth about building momentum to include environmental health in disaster emergency preparedness.

NewPublicHealth: What does the article address?

David Dyjack: The article is the first step in a series of research steps looking at how best to integrate environmental health and emergency preparedness so that communities are more resilient and take greater responsibility for their own health and safety in the event of an environmental disaster.

NPH: What is distinct about environmental health emergency preparedness? 

In a new interview with Ramona Trovato, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NewPublicHealth continues its conversation series about the National Prevention Strategy. The strategy was released last year by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, to help create a healthier and more fit nation.

Earlier this year the Surgeon General’s office released the Strategy’s National Action Plan, designed to show how the 17 Federal Agencies charged with advancing the National Prevention Strategy are implementing its vital components. The EPA has several partner initiatives critical to the health of the nation, which include:

• Partnership for Sustainable Communities: The EPA is a partner, together with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in this partnership to help communities improve access to affordable housing and transportation while protecting the environment, all critical aspects of healthy living.
• Green Ribbon Schools: EPA is a partner with the Department of Education and other agencies for this recognition award that encourages state education agencies and schools to recognize the links between education, health, and the environment, and to make all three of these areas a priority.
• Safe routes to school: Agencies including HHS, EPA and the Department of Transportation support efforts to improve the ability of students to walk and bicycle to school safely.
• Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children: This multi-agency task force, which includes the EPA, recommends strategies for protecting children's health and safety, including specific priorities around asthma, unintentional injuries, lead poisoning, cancer, and environmental health in schools.
• Aging Initiative: This EPA initiative aims to prioritize environmental health hazards that affect older persons, focus on “smart growth” principals to support active aging, and examine the environmental impact of an aging population, and encourage civic involvement among older persons in their communities to reduce hazards. 

Ramona Trovato shared with us EPA’s long history of health promotion and its current efforts to help improve population health as a member agency of the National Prevention Council.

NewPublicHealh: How does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) align itself with the National Prevention Strategy?

Ramona Trovato: The EPA is really pleased to be part of the National Prevention Council and the National Prevention Strategy. We firmly believe in preventing ill health and in promoting wellness, and it’s something that matters to us in all the work that we do. We have very successfully partnered with Department of Health and Human Services in the past and with a number of other federal agencies including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to benefit the public’s health.

NPH: What are the key roles of the Environmental Protection Agency in protecting the nation’s health?

Long-Term Exposure to Air Pollution Increases Risk of Chronic Diseases in Older Adults

Older adults may be at increased risk of being hospitalized for lung and heart disease, stroke, and diabetes after long-term exposure to fine-particle air pollution, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health. The study, published in PLoS One, is the first to look at the link between long-term effects of exposure to fine particles in the air and rates of hospital admissions.

Read more on air pollution.

Increase Found in Opiate Use by Pregnant Women

Between 2000 and 2009 in the United States, the annual rate of maternal opiate use increased nearly fivefold and diagnosis of drug withdrawal syndrome among newborns increased three-fold according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Use of opioids and other illegal drugs is associated with a significantly increased risk of adverse neonatal outcomes including low birth weight and death, according to the study authors. The research was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program.

Read more on prenatal care.

Justice Department Settles Maternity Housing Discrimination Suit

The Department of Justice has announced that it has settled its lawsuit against the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation for discriminating against women on maternity leave in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The settlement is the department’s first involving discrimination against women and families in mortgage insurance.

The lawsuit was filed in July 2011 and alleged that MGIC required women on maternity leave to return to work before the company would insure their mortgages, even for women who had a guaranteed right to return to work after the leave.

Read more on housing and health.

US Confirms Single Case of “Mad Cow”

The Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed the detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California. The USDA says the animal will be destroyed and had not been for slaughtered for human consumption, so at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health. Additionally, according to USDA, milk does not transmit BSE.

Read more about the USDA.

Lung Association: US Air Quality Improving, Still Poses Health Risks

The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2012 report, released today, finds that in America’s most polluted cities, air quality was at its cleanest since the organization began releasing the report thirteen years ago as efforts continue to make environmental hazards.

However, the report shows that more than 40 percent of people in the U.S. live in areas where air pollution continues to threaten their health--127 million people are living in counties with dangerous levels of either ozone or particle pollution that can cause serious health problems such as wheezing and coughing, asthma attacks, heart attacks, and premature death.

Read more on pollution.

Implanted Heart Devices May Pose Infection Risk

Implantable pacemakers or defibrillators may pose a risk for developing deadly infections, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study shows that more than 4.2 million people in the US had a permanent pacemaker or defibrillator implanted between 1993 and 2008, and that infections related to heart devices infections increased 210 percent during that time, according to the study.

The study authors say a contributing factor may be that some patients may have other medical conditions and be particularly vulnerable to developing infections.

Read more on heart disease.

See more public health news roundups.

The Environmental Protection Agency is inviting people to write six-word “micro essays” about Earth in observance of Earth Day this Sunday. Many of the micro-essays will be featured on the EPA home page and on the EPA’s social media channel.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote: Healthier families, cleaner communities, stronger America.

NewPublic Health’s entry: Live, Learn, Work, Play and Breathe.

The EPA has a webpage devoted to Earth Day(and the days beyond—when we should still be decreasing our energy usage, reusing and recycling as much as we can, and using human-powered transportation whenever possible). Other EPA resources include:

• A map of Earth Day activities throughout the nation—for example, Birmingham, Ala., will hold the country’s largest Earth Day parade, while Georgia Tech’s Earth Day celebration includes eco-friendly giveaways, recycling opportunities, a clothing swap, an office supply exchange and organic popcorn.
• Join an EPA discussion group on the environment or start your own.
• Choose Five things to commit to doing to help protect the environment
• Sign on for EPA’s Green Tips such as, "Leaving your car at home twice a week can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 1,600 pounds per year."

>>Bonus Earth Day activity: The American Public Health Association (APHA) recently held an Emergency Stockpile Recipe Contest. The contest was part of the APHA’s Get Ready Campaign, which helps Americans become prepared for disasters and emergencies. What makes the recipes so Earth Day-appropriate is that none require an energy source for preparation and are made from foods you’d stockpile for an emergency (be sure to replace any cans or packages you take out of your stash, though). The winners:

• Easy Orange Curry Chickpeas
• Black Bean Casserole
• Aloha Chicken Poppers
• Troubled Times Trifle

>>Weigh In: What are you doing for Earth Day?

The Department of the Interior has released the "Environmental Justice Strategic Plan 2012-2017."

The plan sets forth goals, strategies and measures to help the Interior Department work more effectively with disadvantaged communities to reduce environmental and health hazards, and outlines steps that the department will take to help protect communities facing disproportionate health and environmental risks.

“Every community deserves a healthy environment in which to live, learn, work, and play,” says Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Salazar says the Strategic Plan will help the Department to better serve minority and low-income communities, including American Indian tribes, by assisting local efforts to recover from environmental, economic and public health impacts associated with abandoned coal mines and industrial pollution, increase the efforts of government agencies to identify and use federal resources to the benefit of environmentally and economically distressed communities; to participate in community revitalization and economic development initiatives; and to conduct community outreach and education projects.

Throughout 2011, representatives from Interior participated in several listening sessions across the country including the 2011 and 2012 listening sessions held during the Alaska Forum on the Environment.

>>Read the Strategic Plan.

Do couches need a pound of flame retardant that may pose its own health risk? A recent presentation at the Harvard School of Public Health looked at flame retardants, found in some household goods, that have been linked in some studies to cancer, fertility and brain development issues. The keynote speaker, Arlene Blum, a visiting scholar in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, has been researching flame retardants since the 1970s. Among Blum’s concerns: many items such as office and home furniture contain substances that may pose a danger, but are not regulated by any federal agency.

Read more about Professor Blum’s presentation.

Bonus Reading: The Yale School of Public Health published a report on safety concerns linked to flame retardants earlier last year.

Today is World Water Day and in remarks at the State Department this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out that the U.S. is not immune to the issue. “We are pursuing this not only because we care about it around the world; we care about it here at home. We’ve had increasing problems meeting our own needs in the Desert Southwest or managing floods in the East. No country anywhere, no matter how developed, is immune to the challenges that we face,” said Clinton.

In the U.S. water crises are more likely to be linked to emergencies such as weather disasters that can interrupt or contaminate water supplies:

A key group that presented at the New Partners for Smart Growth conference last week, was the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Created in 2009, the Partnership is a collaborative initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the combined goal of helping communities across the U.S. improve access to affordable housing, increase transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment.

The Partnership works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water, and other infrastructure investments to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money and reduce pollution.

"Sustainable communities are those that have access to jobs, quality schools, safe streets, environmental benefits—basically, communities that are built in ways that everyone can be included and have a better quality of life," said Shelley Poticha, who serves as HUD’s advisor to the Partnership and as Director for Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at the Department.