Personal & Planetary Health

4.1. Personal and Planetary Health

“Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness”—a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. As our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

In the bookThe Roots of Health (2001) Romy Fraser and Sandra Hill reminds us that “we cannot sustain health without addressing what is needed throughout the interconnected systems of our lives; our selves as individuals, our physical health, our psychological health, our relationships with our families, our communities and our environment.” They argue that in regaining “the roots of our health” we may also learn to be better stewards of the earth as well as of ourselves (p.73). Their insight speaks to the core concern of salutogenesis—an influential theory developing the social dimensions in health research and prevention—that foregrounds socio-ecological restoration and regeneration as inseparable as individual and community health and wellness, and vice versa.

The Roots of Health, by Romy Fraser & Hill Sandra.

In Module 1 of Ecological Dimension, we have mentioned that health is fundamentally scale-linked. This means that the health of individuals, families, communities, ecosystems, bioregions and the biosphere is all interdependent. The roots of human health are anchored in living soils and biodiverse ecosystems. When we talk about sustainability, we are, in many ways, talking about health and the pattern that connects and sustains life at all scales. David Waltner-Toews (2004), in the book Ecosystem Sustainability and Health: A Practical Approach, proposes that the shared goal of improving health can serve as a transcultural bridge between different peoples, as he writes:

“Health is generally accepted by most reasonable people as a non-negotiable, trans-ideological goal. Indeed, I have found that health – rooted as it is in particular histories and cultures, but universally understood in some basic sense – can serve an important role in developing the new cross-cultural symbolic language which Panikkar suggests is necessary to promote convivial and sustainable human life on this planet.” (p.89)

When we perceive ourselves as biological organisms participating in the web of life, we would see how our actions directly affect the health of individuals, communities, and ecosystems. Therefore, the most effective long-term strategy to promote human health and well-being would definitely involve preventing environmental degradation and maintaining healthy ecosystems.

In 1992, the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Health and Environment published a landmark report Our Planet, Our Health. In the report, it is stated:

“The maintenance and improvement of health should be at the center of concern about the environment and development. Yet health rarely receives high priority in environmental policies and development plans, rarely figures as an important item in environmental or development programs, despite the fact that the quality of the environment and the nature of development are major determinants of health. … The toll they extract on human health and natural resources and systems could be enormously reduced by better environmental management.”

Since this report, there have been more interdisciplinary approaches to address public health. The WHO Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health was established in 2005 (https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/). The “One Health” concept, introduced and implemented by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO in the 2000s, promotes an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to public health that recognizes the interconnection between people, animals, plants and the environment we share. It focuses on interlinking the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems to address challenges such as pandemics, pollution, antimicrobial resistance and climate crisis. The “One Health” approach has been essential in addressing zoonotic diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as avian flu, rabies, and COVID-19. The WHO One Health Initiative task force was created in 2007. More about this initiative and their most recent reports are available on the official website:https://www.who.int/health-topics/one-health#tab=tab_1

Similarly, the concept of “planetary health” has also been increasingly recognized by scientific and policy institutions as a defining paradigm for the 21st century, especially since the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission formally defined the term in 2015. The “planetary health” framework affirms that human-caused disruptions such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution affect human health and well-being. Planetary health acknowledges that human health depends on flourishing natural systems and how we wisely steward these systems in our societies, economies and ways of life. As a broader system-level framework in public health, planetary health focuses on sustainability and long-term impact rather than immediate disease prevention.

Source: from Public Health Prepared website:https://publichealthprepared.org/one-health-and-planetary-health-why-we-need-both-frameworks-in-public-health/

In 2020, the WHO Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health published a global strategy, aiming at “transforming the way we tackle environmental risks to health by accounting for health in all policies and scaling up disease prevention and health promotion.” The document, available in multiple languages, responds to and is aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the GPW13. You can download the WHO Global Strategy on Health, Environment and Climate Change here:https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240000377

The WHO has also released the Health and Environment Scorecards that cover six major environmental threats to health: air pollution, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), climate change, exposure to chemicals, radiation, and occupational health. The scorecards aim to assist policymakers in identifying priorities and areas in great need of attention and resources. You can read more about the scorecards via this link:https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/monitoring/scorecards

Interdisciplinary networks such as the Planetary Health Alliance (https://planetaryhealthalliance.org/) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre have been instrumental in implementing and advocating for this integrated approach to health as interconnected living systems. The “Planetary Boundaries framework,” first outlined by Earth system scientists in 2009 and later developed by theStockholm Resilience Centre, serves as a foundation to track how human activity is affecting the critical processes that keep the planet stable, helping us to assess and maintain the conditions that support life on Earth.

In this module, we will take a closer look at the relationships between humans, ecosystems, and planetary health. In the next few sections, we will first introduce the sociology of health theory, salutogenesis as a theoretical basis for generating well-being and resilience, focusing on the origin of health. From a salutogenic perspective, we will then look at the ways in which systemic and social inequity, healthy and meaningful relationships play significant roles in health. We will also explore the One Health integrated approach to understand how local and daily actions, including making choices about our diet and food, can have direct impacts on global health and pandemic preparedness.