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Choosing Where You Live - Introduction
A Consumer Self Help Guide to the U.S. and U.S. Territories
Introduction
This guide addresses the environmental concerns of air quality, water quality, waste management and others, that affect the physical and psychological health of a person. Our physical and psychological health can be affected by our surroundings. These surroundings include water, air, soil, noise, traffic congestion, climate, and population density. These are some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration when determining where to live.
While environmental hazards are of concern to each of us, we may view potential threats from our environments differently. The ability to sense and avoid harmful conditions is necessary, not only to improve our quality of life, but often for survival. Choices we make, relative to living in today's environments, are based on how we think about and respond to situations (environments) that pose risks to us. Public health officials define risk as a probability that a substance or situation will produce harmful effects under specified conditions over time. For example, the heart patient living in a highly congested or industrial area with dense smog or particulate matter, is potentially at increased risk.
This guide, prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), offers publicly available information sources and guidelines for consumers to use when evaluating different geographic areas. EPA seeks to make this information available in order to aid consumers in choosing the most appropriate environments for them to work, live, and play safely.
This public guidebook is for you to use when evaluating environmental
concerns, either where you are presently living, or where you are considering
relocating. EPA has provided a checklist of items which may be of concern
to the public. This guide consists of two parts:
- A Checklist (noting environmental
concerns expressed by the public when considering how an area may affect
their health and safety); and
- Data Sources (a listing publicly available information and resources).
First, look at the list of concerns and check those which you want to know more about. Second, review and consider the questions under the section that are of interest to you. Third, note the phone numbers, hotline numbers, web sites, and sections where you can look for more information. The information resources are located in the back of the guide. You may wish to call a local state environmental office listed in the back of the guide for more information on a particular topic.