Planetary Health
by Andrew Brown
Interdisciplinary Environmental Review (IER), Vol. 4, No. 2, 2002

Abstract: This paper is an exercise in integrative thinking. Accepting the perilous decline of the environment as a given, and accepting the growing evidence of serious damage to human health, Planetary Health suggests a philosophy of environmental health that implies deep societal and educational change. It presents a conceptual framework for understanding human health as a dynamic condition of sustainability arising from successful integration of ecological sub-systems, of which the human species is but one. Human health and planetary health are fundamentally inseparable. The environment is the primary health care delivery system: the disruption of the environment threatens us with a health crises beyond our experience. As a species priority, we need a vision of how to sustain the planetary health care system. What are the broadest contextual determinants of individual and societal health? What are the behavioral implications of profound interdependence? Planetary Health attempts to synthesize multiple aspects of human health - physical, economic, behavioral, and cognitive into a vision of human sustainability. It proposes the phenomenon of human health as one aspect of a unifying ecological principle. It proposes this reality as the appropriate foundation of educational and social policy.

Online publication date: Mon, 13-May-2013

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Review (IER):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com