‘Planetary health’ focuses on disruption from human activity

To learn more about how human activity is disrupting the planet’s natural systems and impacting the health of people around the world, researchers are focusing on a field called “planetary health.”

The first-ever planetary health conference drew 400 researchers, students, policymakers and others to Harvard Medical School April 28-30, 2017, as tens of thousands took to the streets in Washington, D.C., Boston and other cities around the U.S. calling for action on climate change. The conference was co-organized by the Planetary Health Alliance, Harvard University Center for the Environment, several scientific and charitable organizations, and the medical journal The Lancet, and was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

“The whole concept of planetary health is that human activity is increasingly disrupting all of our planet’s natural systems, including the climate system but also including land use, land cover, global fisheries, freshwater systems, bio-geochemical cycles, and a variety of other natural systems,” said Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health senior research scientist Samuel Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance and lead organizer of the conference, in an April 28 interview with WBUR’s “CommonHealth.”

Read the WBUR interview: As Climate Protestors March, Researchers Gather For New Field: ‘Planetary Health’

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Climate change and health (Harvard Chan School news roundup)