Hope, Health, and the Climate Crisis Frumkin, Howard
The journal of climate change and health,
February 2022, 2022-02-00, 2022-02-01, Letnik:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Hope has been viewed since ancient times as a bedrock of human thriving, and contemporary evidence suggests that hope is a determinant of health. However, the climate crisis, in addition to its many ...direct and indirect threats to human health, erodes hope in many people. This article describes medical aspects of hope and hopelessness, including clinical definitions, measurement methods, and treatments. It then touches on literary and philosophical perspectives on hope, from both ancient and modern sources, emphasizing the centrality of hope to human thriving. Finally, it applies these clinical and cultural perspectives to the climate crisis, arguing that health professionals should propel hope in themselves, their patients, and the broader society, and drawing on clinical insights to propose concrete ways of doing so.
Nature and health Hartig, Terry; Mitchell, Richard; de Vries, Sjerp ...
Annual review of public health,
01/2014, Letnik:
35
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Urbanization, resource exploitation, and lifestyle changes have diminished possibilities for human contact with nature in urbanized societies. Concern about the loss has helped motivate research on ...the health benefits of contact with nature. Reviewing that research here, we focus on nature as represented by aspects of the physical environment relevant to planning, design, and policy measures that serve broad segments of urbanized societies. We discuss difficulties in defining "nature" and reasons for the current expansion of the research field, and we assess available reviews. We then consider research on pathways between nature and health involving air quality, physical activity, social cohesion, and stress reduction. Finally, we discuss methodological issues and priorities for future research. The extant research does describe an array of benefits of contact with nature, and evidence regarding some benefits is strong; however, some findings indicate caution is needed in applying beliefs about those benefits, and substantial gaps in knowledge remain.
"Sense of place" is a widely discussed concept in fields as diverse as geography, environmental psychology, and art, but it has little traction in the field of public health. The health impact of ...place includes physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and aesthetic outcomes. In this article, the author introduces sense of place as a public health construct. While many recommendations for "good places" are available, few are based on empirical evidence, and thus they are incompatible with current public health practice. Evidence-based recommendations for healthy place making could have important public health implications. Four aspects of the built environment, at different spatial scales-nature contact, buildings, public spaces, and urban form-are identified as offering promising opportunities for public health research, and potential research agendas for each are discussed.
Background: Since the dawn of cities, the built environment has both affected infectious disease transmission and evolved in response to infectious diseases. COVID-19 illustrates both dynamics. The ...pandemic presented an opportunity to implement health promotion and disease prevention strategies in numerous elements of the built environment. Objectives: This commentary aims to identify features of the built environment that affect the risk of COVID-19 as well as to identify elements of the pandemic response with implications for the built environment (and, therefore, for long-term public health). Discussion: Built environment risk factors for COVID-19 transmission include crowding, poverty, and racism (as they manifest in housing and neighborhood features), poor indoor air circulation, and ambient air pollution. Potential long-term implications of COVID-19 for the built environment include changes in building design, increased teleworking, reconfigured streets, changing modes of travel, provision of parks and green-space, and population shifts out of urban centers. Although it is too early to predict with confidence which of these responses may persist, identifying and monitoring them can help health professionals, architects, urban planners, and decision makers, as well as members of the public, optimize healthy built environments during and after recovery from the pandemic.
Background: Extreme heat events (EHEs) are increasing in frequency in large U.S. cities and are responsible for a greater annual number of climate-related fatalities, on average, than any other form ...of extreme weather. In addition, low-density, sprawling patterns of urban development have been associated with enhanced surface temperatures in urbanized areas. Objectives: In this study. we examined the association between urban form at the level of the metropolitan region and the frequency of EHEs over a five-decade period. Methods: We employed a widely published sprawl index to measure the association between urban form in 2000 and the mean annual rate of change in EHEs between 1956 and 2005. Results: We found that the rate of increase in the annual number of EHEs between 1956 and 2005 in the most sprawling metropolitan regions was more than double the rate of increase observed in the most compact metropolitan regions. Conclusions: The design and management of land use in metropolitan regions may offer an important tool for adapting to the heat-related health effects associated with ongoing climate change.
At a time of increasing disconnectedness from nature, scientific interest in the potential health benefits of nature contact has grown. Research in recent decades has yielded substantial evidence, ...but large gaps remain in our understanding.
We propose a research agenda on nature contact and health, identifying principal domains of research and key questions that, if answered, would provide the basis for evidence-based public health interventions.
We identify research questions in seven domains:
) mechanistic biomedical studies;
) exposure science;
) epidemiology of health benefits;
) diversity and equity considerations;
) technological nature;
) economic and policy studies; and
) implementation science.
Nature contact may offer a range of human health benefits. Although much evidence is already available, much remains unknown. A robust research effort, guided by a focus on key unanswered questions, has the potential to yield high-impact, consequential public health insights. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1663.
In coming decades, sea level rise associated with climate change will make some communities uninhabitable. Managed retreat, or planned relocation, is a proactive response prior to catastrophic ...necessity. Managed retreat has disruptive health, sociocultural, and economic impacts on communities that relocate. Health impacts include mental health, social capital, food security, water supply, sanitation, infectious diseases, injury, and health care access. We searched peer-reviewed and gray literature for reports on small island or coastal communities at various stages of relocation primarily due to sea level rise. We reviewed these reports to identify public health impacts and barriers to relocation. We identified eight relevant small communities in the USA (Alaska, Louisiana, and Washington), Panama, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Affected populations range from 60 to 2700 persons and are predominantly indigenous people who rely on subsistence fishing and agriculture. Few reports directly addressed public health issues. While some relocations were successful, barriers to relocation in other communities include place attachment, potential loss of livelihoods, and lack of funding, suitable land, community consensus, and governance procedures. Further research is needed on the health impacts of managed retreat and how to facilitate population resilience. Studies could include surveillance of health indicators before and after communities relocate due to sea level rise, drought, or other environmental hazards. Lessons learned may inform relocation of both small and large communities affected by climate change.
...research translation is needed. ...powerful leadership must continue and must include articulate advocacy for the im- portance of health in building and redevelopment decisions.
Climate change poses a range of current and future health risks that health professionals need to understand, track, and manage. However, conventional monitoring and evaluation (M&E) as practiced in ...the health sector, including the use of indicators, does not adequately serve this purpose. Improved indicators are needed in three broad categories: (1) vulnerability and exposure to climate-related hazards; (2) current impacts and projected risks; and (3) adaptation processes and health system resilience. These indicators are needed at the population level and at the health systems level (including clinical care and public health). Selected indicators must be sensitive, valid, and useful. And they must account for uncertainties about the magnitude and pattern of climate change; the broad range of upstream drivers of climate-sensitive health outcomes; and the complexities of adaptation itself, including institutional learning and knowledge management to inform iterative risk management. Barriers and constraints to implementing such indicators must be addressed, and lessons learned need to be added to the evidence base. This paper describes an approach to climate and health indicators, including characteristics of the indicators, implementation, and research needs.
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