Question: What kind of diseases can polluted environments cause to people?

Eileen Diskin answered on 12 Nov 2012:

Hi niallthenerd!

Polluted environments can cause lots of different kinds of disease. It depends on what the pollution is. Pollution can be chemical (toxic things from factories, for example), which can cause cancers. Or, it can be biological (bacteria that get into environments from cities, and run-off from agriculture). These can cause all sorts of diseases. This can be a very serious problem in developing countries (like Kenya, for example) – because a lot of people there don’t have access to clean drinking water to remove the chemicals or the bacteria. We’re very lucky here that we have clean water to drink!

Both humans and wildlife can get sick from the environments. What I am researching are the diseases that wildlife can get from their environments that humans can also get, if they come into contact with wildlife.