Personal Protective Equipment for COVID-19 and Beyond: Occupational and Environmental Exposure Considerations in...

In this reflection piece, the authors describe a hypertension follow-up visit and draw attention to an often overlooked aspect of a patient's health: their occupational and environmental history. For years, physicians and clinicians have understood and treated disease secondary to conspicuously harmful environmental exposures; the impacts of everyday exposures on patient health are less understood and appreciated. This article specifically addresses the critical question of how primary care physicians and clinicians can think about, and address, occupational and environmental health hazards in their assessment and treatment of chronic disease in patients. We present 3 strategies that primary care physicians and clinicians can adopt to better account for environmental and occupational risks: good history taking, advising or advocacy, and education.