Euthenics

Ellen Swallow Richards (left), the first female student and instructor at MIT was one of the first to use the term, while Julia Clifford Lathrop (right) continued to promote it in the form of an interdisciplinary academic program later to be mostly absorbed into the field of home economics

Euthenics (/juːˈθɛnɪks/) is the study of improvement of human functioning and well-being by improvement of living conditions.^[2] "Improvement" is conducted by altering external factors such as education and the controllable environments, including environmentalism, education regarding employment, home economics, sanitation, and housing, as well as the prevention and removal of contagious disease and parasites.^{[citation needed]}

In a New York Times article of May 23, 1926, Rose Field notes of the description, "the simplest [is] efficient living".^[3] It is also described as "a right to environment",^[4] commonly as dual to a "right of birth" that correspondingly falls under the purview of eugenics.^[5]

Euthenics is not normally interpreted to have anything to do with changing the composition of the human gene pool by definition, although everything that affects society has some effect on who reproduces and who does not.^[6]