Description
Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth's natural systems, the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate, are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves provides a readable introduction to this new paradigm. With an interdisciplinary approach, the book addresses a wide range of health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, dislocation and conflict, and mental health. It also presents strategies to combat environmental changes and its ill-effects, such as controlling toxic exposures, investing in clean energy, improving urban design, and more. Chapters are authored by widely recognised experts. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic overview of a growing field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world. Students of public health will gain a solid grounding in the new challenges their profession must confront, while those in the environmental sciences, agriculture, the design professions, and other fields will become familiar with the human consequences of planetary changes. Understanding how our changing environment affects our health is increasingly critical to a variety of disciplines and professions. Planetary Health is the definitive guide to this vital field.
About the Author
Samuel Myers, MD, MPH is a Principle Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Planetary Health Alliance. Dr. Myers serves as a Commissioner on the Lancet-Rockefeller Foundation Commission on Planetary Health and the Lancet Commission on Arctic health. He was the inaugural recipient of the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award in 2018 for research quantifying the impacts of environmental change on human nutrition. Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH is head of the Our Plant, Our Health initiative at the Wellcome Trust. He was previously Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and Director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR), and Special Assistant to the Director for Climate Change and Health, at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Book Information
ISBN 9781610919661
Author Samuel Myers
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Island Press
Publisher Island Press
About the Author
Samuel Myers, MD, MPH is a Principle Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Planetary Health Alliance. Dr. Myers serves as a Commissioner on the Lancet-Rockefeller Foundation Commission on Planetary Health and the Lancet Commission on Arctic health. He was the inaugural recipient of the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award in 2018 for research quantifying the impacts of environmental change on human nutrition. Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH is head of the Our Plant, Our Health initiative at the Wellcome Trust. He was previously Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and Director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR), and Special Assistant to the Director for Climate Change and Health, at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Book Information
ISBN 9781610919661
Author Samuel Myers
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Island Press
Publisher Island Press
