Theres a bit of a paradox that were seeing for the last 100 to 150 years, says Michael Myers, managing director for health at the Rockefeller Foundation. The diagnosis is the size of our collective ecological footprint and the Earth crisis; we are really degrading all of our natural systems. The solutions, by and large, are there. And I am struck that they are getting the same science education that I got, that they have to take physics in ninth grade, and then they have to take chemistry, and then they take biology. We are working on a paper about the importance of planetary health as a framework for the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and are really interested in whether we can get the United Nations system to really think about planetary health as a unifying framework that brings all the different SDGs in to focus as part of a cohesive whole. And then how does the private sector engage with that? COVID-19 and future pandemics: a global systems approach and relevance to SDGs, Horizon Scanning: Rise of Planetary Health Genomics and Digital Twins for Pandemic Preparedness, Capturing Whole-Person Health Data Using Mobile Applications, One Biosecurity: a unified concept to integrate human, animal, plant, and environmental health, Building a Methodological Foundation for Impactful Urban Planetary Health Science, Current Global Health Impact Assessment Practice, The Case for Public Financing of Environmental Common Goods for Health, Soil biota, antimicrobial resistance and planetary health, Climate Change, Human Health, and Social Stability: Addressing Interlinkages, Fate of engineered nanomaterials in natural environments and impacts on ecosystems, Training in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Prevention, Walking Ecosystems in Microbiome-Inspired Green Infrastructure: An Ecological Perspective on Enhancing Personal and Planetary Health, Planetary Health: From the Wellspring of Holistic Medicine to Personal and Public Health Imperative. We are also working with the UNDP, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the World Wildlife Foundation. August 2019 We just produced a 10-minute video that we call The Promise of Planetary Health (see video above), and it follows that arc. Reaching across the university and beyond, we aim to investigate and address these interdependencies to create and preserve a livable future It prepares kids or young adults for the world that we are going to be moving into. What used to be a series of discreet and disconnected conversations about particular environmental problems: the climate conversation, the oceans conversation, the biodiversity conversation, the pollution conversation, all of which have been environmental conversations attended by environmental groups, and environmental ministries, are now morphing into a single global conversation about the size of humanity's ecological footprint and about whether or not we can safeguard a liveable future for humanity. What has been an environmental conversation is turning into a human survival conversation. For example, he recommends formally including public health considerations in environmental impact assessments for major development projects. Urgent attention and action is required to address the extensive damage that humans have created and acknowledge our health is intrinsically linked to the health of the planet. Planetary health offers a way to understand the relationship between human health and environmental sustainability. During her time at AZoNetwork, Emily has interviewed over 300 leading experts in all areas of science and healthcare including the World Health Organization and the United Nations. I think there is evidence right in front of our eyes that more and more people are getting engaged. Last year, his team estimated that such fires caused around 100,000 excess deaths in 2015 alone.26, Even as rising levels of atmospheric CO2 increase plant growth, they also reduce concentrations of protein and essential minerals in most vascular species, including many staple crops. I am most proud of the company I keep. Will we do it? Not only do we need to address the energy sector, but we also need to do more. Today, there is greater mortality globally due to air pollution than because of HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. The concept of planetary health emphasizes that human health is intricately connected to the health of natural systems within the Earth . And so I proposed that what we needed was a really robust, vibrant, global field that was taking on these challenges and that we should create an alliance of organizations committed to building that field together. I think we have reached an inflection point and we are seeing a rapid proliferation of these frameworks and the ideas of planetary health in the community and globally. The Rockefeller Foundation had brought together this commission to explore the question of how anthropogenic environmental changes that human beings are driving across our planet's natural systems are affecting our own health and wellbeing. It is a far-flung consortium, and some of our members are working very closely with us in some of our key initiatives, whereas others are working more independently. What used to be a series of discreet and disconnected conversations about particular environmental problems: the climate conversation, the oceans conversation, the biodiversity conversation, the pollution conversation, all of which have been environmental conversations attended by environmental groups, and environmental ministries, are now morphing into a single global conversation about the size of humanity's ecological footprint and about whether or not we can safeguard a liveable future for humanity. due to the complexity of the information being presented. The gains made in health and well-being over recent centuries, including through public health actions, are not irreversible; they can easily be lost, a lesson we have failed to learn from previous civilisations.9. He was the inaugural recipient of the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award in 2018. It ends exactly that way. Planetary Health explores the many environmental changes that threaten to undermine progress in human health, and explains how these changes affect health outcomes, from pandemics to infectious diseases to mental health, from chronic diseases to injuries. - .video-responsive{ overflow:hidden; padding-bottom:56.25%; position:relative; height:0; } .video-responsive iframe{ left:0; top:0; height:100%; width:100%; position:absolute; }. 0 Comments. Why study Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash? But, in fact, that will not get us out of the challenges that we face around the health effects of global environmental change. In this interview, we speak to Dr. Sam Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance, about the importance of raising awareness surrounding planetary health and the actions that need to be taken to ensure a healthier planet for the future. Golden is leading an investigation on ways that human-caused changes to global fisheries affect diet, nutrition, and thus human health around the planet, especially in low-income nations near the equator.14 The project involves dozens of researchers with specialties as diverse as ecosystem services, nutritional epidemiology, and fisheries ecology, and is one of 19 funded since 2013 through the Wellcome Trusts expansive new research portfolio, Our Planet, Our Health.15 Wellcome was among five cosponsors of the 2017 Planetary Health Alliance conference, although it has never funded or joined the alliance, says portfolio lead Saskia Heijnen. He is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (Level 1 & 2). The importance of this shift cannot be overstated. Collaboration is very important in the PHA. The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical. I think there is a real value in teaching systems thinking and a planetary health framework all the way from elementary school up through university. The 2016 commentary concludes with what Golden considers its main point: a call for policy makers and international agencies to pay more attention to human health when deciding how to manage marine environments and fisheries. And that means change across food systems, energy systems, circular economy, manufacturing, the built environment - all the ways that we are living. In fact, it is easy to imagine that, a hundred years from now, our grandchildren or their children are living in a world where the human population has stabilized and is actually falling as part of the regular demographic transition; where we have moved to a zero-carbon energy economy; where we are producing the food that we need with dramatically reduced ecological inputs; where we have embraced circular manufacturing, producing much less waste; and where we are living in cities that have been designed to optimize our physical and mental health whilst minimizing our ecological footprints. Osofsky is also science policy director for the Harvard-based Planetary Health Alliance, a consortium of nearly 100 universities, NGOs, government entities, research institutes, and other partners committed to advancing the field. October 2020 This leads to new challenges for public health. Diverse Environments strengthen Food Security 4. (accessed July 25, 2022). contact What the future is going to look like depends on what we collectively decide to do. The PHA was founded at the time when we released the Rockefeller-Lancet Commission report on Planetary Health called Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene. I think there is evidence right in front of our eyes that more and more people are getting engaged. By exploiting Earth resources we have a more comfortable existence, and our life spans have increased considerably. People were not coming to us with ideas because it was not known that we were interested in it, she says. I do not want to gloss over the importance of the statement itself before we move into the actions. Planetary health is a product of human social, political and economic 'ecosystems'. Sam received his BA from Harvard College, MD from Yale University School of Medicine, and MPH from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Image Credit:Proxima Studio/Shutterstock.com. The size of humanitys ecological footprint has ballooned so rapidly over the last few decades that were impacting the structure and function of natural systems in ways that are now making us vulnerable all over the world, says Samuel Myers, a principal research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Similarly, in food systems, how do we stimulate the protein revolution that is taking place, and the proliferation of plant-based meat companies, cell-based meat, or protein fermentation, all of which decouple protein production from animal livestock, which has an enormous ecological footprint globally and is very destructive. These ' planetary health ' issues are the key drivers of human health and societal integrity of our era, and action is needed now. Trees clean the Air 6. Image: muhd fuad abd rahim/Shutterstock. He is the co-editor with Howard Frumkin ofPlanetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves. We have the head of Health Promotion from the World Health Organization speaking with Paul Polman, who used to run Unilever and is a leading voice from the private sector on sustainability issues. And I think that moment is extremely important. And it is not just this particular theme and WHO, it is the World Federation of Public Health Associations and World Health Week. Position end feeling themselves later former continue seven. I do not think you can overstate the symbolic importance of the World Health Organization choosing this theme. They are all talking about the issue of, if WHO is coming to this conclusion that we need well-being economies to safeguard health, what does this mean? Source: Medek et al. 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In all, nearly 20 universities worldwide have introduced planetary health concepts through courses, lectures, seminars, and other formats at the graduate or undergraduate level over the last couple of years, according to Stone. In 2017, the Rockefeller Foundation launched a second commission on planetary health, this time to investigate the economic rationale for the field. There is no doubt that our planet and its climate are changing as a result of human actions. Well, the first thing to say is that it goes well beyond our carbon footprint. September 2019 Some of these declines are due to the usual suspects of overfishing, pollution, and human population growth. This date commemorates the importance of having baseline values and principles that act as the compass of humanity towards protecting and taking care of the planet. The emerging field of Planetary Health offers the opportunity to go beyond this scope and takes it the extra mile: to educate and sensitize on the dependence the human . Nine of these deal with health effects of human-driven ecosystem transformations such as pollution, urbanization, and climate change, and six refer to the role of environmental change in public health topics including infectious disease, mental health, and civil strife.27 The ultimate purpose of such transdisciplinary work, the Planetary Health Alliance emphasizes, is to mitigate the negative human health impacts of global environmental change. Not only do we need to address the energy sector, but we also need to do more. And we are continuing ongoing work including with our Planetary Health Campus Ambassadors and our clinician networks. December 2019 The Lancet Commission on pollution and health reported that pollution was responsible for 9 million premature deaths in 2015, making it the world's largest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death. The fast-paced field of Planetary Health matters for many . The World Health Organization itself just released the Geneva Charter on Health Promotion and Well-being in December last year. Selina is a medical graduate from the University of Melbourne in 1993 with a post-graduate degree in public and international law focusing on trade, human rights, and health. One important area which required immediate attention was the system of governance and organization of human knowledge, . It is a (non) field of scholarship very . We dont have a lot of time to get ourselves on a different trajectory and the activism and movement building that is taking place within the planetary health field will be critical to making that transition. These efforts will incorporate both social science and public interventions. We saw it at COP26. This depends on greater awareness and . Just that recognition broadens the constituency of people that are committed to addressing these environmental challenges enormously which breathes new life and power into efforts to address these challenges. Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H., Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Public Health The sustainable vitality of all systems: Planetary health, inseparably bonded to human health, is defined as the interdependent vitality of all natural and anthropogenic ecosystems; this vitality includes the biologically defined ecosystems (at micro, meso and macro scales) that favor biodiversity; it includes the more broadly defined human-constructed social, political, and economic . The insect farming team will investigate not only cultivation methods and human uptake of minerals from insects, but also, over the long term, ways to encourage cultural acceptance of insects as a food source. But in terms of these particular issues of the connectedness of human health and well-being, planetary processes, and our planet's biophysical conditions, we welcome everybody to come to the Planetary Health Alliance website where we have a lot of information. Lao Peoples Democratic Republic is in the midst of an aggressive push to build hydropower capacity, with more than 50 sites expected to be in operation by 2025.39 Major development projects like these can improve the quality of life for many people. Whatever replacement foods people might adopt, whether meat, eggs, or local agricultural products and processed foods, Golden says they are likely to be nutritionally inferior to seafood, which he calls natures superfood.. The distinction matters because if we get the diagnosis wrong, we get the treatment wrong. Samuel Myers, MD, MPH studies the human health impacts of accelerating disruptions to Earths natural systems, a field recently dubbed Planetary Health. "Taking action to reduce air pollution not only improves public health, but also helps to mitigate climate change, which is a major threat to health security, contributing to food shortages and mosquito-borne diseases," she said. 10 Importance of Environmental Health 1. I think we have been guilty of a lot of catastrophism and a lot of apocalyptic predictions. We are putting a lot of energy right now into planning that meeting. And that means change across food systems, energy systems, circular economy, manufacturing, the built environment - all the ways that we are living. Something being intuitive does not mean it is easily executed.. There are so many more things that are happening. A man surveys the damage following a catastrophic 2014 flood in Kelantan, Malaysia, which was widely claimed to have been worsened by deforestation.37,38 Planetary health focuses on human-driven ecosystem transformations (such as changing land use) and human health outcomes (such as those related to mental health, infectious disease, and civil strife following natural disasters). That is not something I think a whole lot about. I am extraordinarily privileged to work with an exceptional group of people from the core staff of the PHA to our Advisory Board and Steering Committee to our campus ambassadors, fellows, and partners. Image: Rebecca Gaal. And it applies academic rigor to measure and understand these effects. The Environment is a Source of Medication. Henderson, Emily. It is really a question of whether we can develop the collective political will to engage with these solutions to overcome entrenched special interests and chart the course that we need to be on. "Our Planet, Our Health; Importance of Understanding Planetary Health". Urgent attention and action is required to address the extensive damage that humans have created and acknowledge our health is intrinsically linked to the health of the planet. 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May 2019 And so I proposed that what we needed was a really robust, vibrant, global field that was taking on these challenges and that we should create an alliance of organizations committed to building that field together.

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