Current evidence that the climate is changing is overwhelming. Impacts of climate change and variability are being observed: more intense heat-waves, fires and floods; and increased prevalence of food- water- and vector-borne diseases. Climate change will put pressure on environmental and health det...erminants, such as food safety, air pollution and water quantity and quality. A climate-resilient future depends fundamentally on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting warming to below 2 °C requires transformational technological, institutional, political and behavioural changes: the foundations for this are laid out in the Paris Agreement of December 2015. The health sector can lead by example, shifting to environmentally friendly practices and minimizing its carbon emissions. A climate-resilient future will increasingly depend on managing and reducing climate change risks to protect health. In the near term, this can be enhanced by including climate change in national health programming and creating climate-resilient health systems.
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Human use of land has been transforming Earth's ecology for millennia. From hunting and foraging to burning the land to farming to industrial agriculture, increasingly intensive human use of land has reshaped global patterns of biodiversity, ecosystems, landscapes, and climate. This review examines ...recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, environmental history, and model-based reconstructions that reveal a planet largely transformed by land use over more than 10,000 years. Although land use has always sustained human societies, its ecological consequences are diverse and sometimes opposing, both degrading and enriching soils, shrinking wild habitats and shaping novel ones, causing extinctions of some species while propagating and domesticating others, and both emitting and absorbing the greenhouse gases that cause global climate change. By transforming Earth's ecology, land use has literally paved the way for the Anthropocene.
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The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Volume 106: Issue 1 p.12-14.he piece highlights a body of research that suggests tiny plastic particles could disrupt immune and endocrine systems, damage organs, and cause other health problems. “Without a fundamental reimagining of global... industrial practices, we will continue to see dire impacts on the climate, the planet and our health
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Joule 5, 2687–2714 October 20, 2021 Cell Press
Transformation and outlook
Sustainability 2020, 12, 1025
This joint publication by UNAIDS and WHO emphasizes the importance of integrating HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care and mental health services for people living with HIV. It provides a compilation of tools, best practices, recommendations and guidelines that facilitate the integration of i...nterventions and services to address the interlinked issues of mental health and HIV. This publication is intended for global, regional and national policy-makers; programme implementers including at subnational levels; organizations working in and providers of HIV and mental health services; civil society; and community-based and community-led organizations and advocates.
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The disruptions in imports, production and the related surge in food prices induced by the current conflict in Ukraine have the potential to worsen the food security situation in the Eastern Africa Region, which is already been impacted by the effect of three consecutive below-normal rainfall season...s.
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27 April 2022 Chronic land degradation: UN offers stark warnings and practical remedies in Global Land Outlook 2. GLO2 offers hundreds of examples from around the world that demonstrate the potential of land restoration.
The way land resources – soil, water and biodiversity – are currently mi...smanaged and misused threatens the health and continued survival of many species on Earth, including our own, warns a stark new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
It also points decision makers to hundreds of practical ways to effect local, national and regional land and ecosystem restoration.
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This report has been prepared in response to informal requests by SIDS Member States and territories for WHO assistance in confronting the stark and dire situation which climate change has created in their countries and the impact it is having on their peoples
Lancet Glob Health 2022 Published Online May 24, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00185-1
Many commercial actors use a range of coordinated and sophisticated strategies to protect business interests— their corporate playbook—but many of these strategies come at the expense of public h...ealth. To counter this corporate playbook and advance health and wellbeing, public health actors need to develop, refine, and modernise their own set of strategies, to create a public health playbook. In this Viewpoint, we seek to consolidate thinking around how public health can counter and proactively minimise powerful commercial influences.
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Lancet 2022; 399: 1155–200 Published Online March 15, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/
S0140-6736(21)02488-0
Global asymmetries influence policies for recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nearly 30 years after the Earth Summit and the global adoption of an international development agenda, in practical terms the environmental pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has not been taken ...into consideration in recovery policies in the region. This has created major problems in terms of the medium- and long-term direction of regional economies.
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The health sector In Ukraine is beginning to change in recent years. The sector, based on a system of health care (Semashko) originating from the Soviet Union, had been stagnant for many years. Remarkably little had changed since Independence and the health care system is as of today still character...ized by a very hierarchical and territorial system with large numbers of beds in institutional care settings. At the same time the Government of Ukraine has only limited resources available that are spread thin over the existing infrastructure
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Cities are uniquely positioned to understand local needs and respond rapidly to changing conditions to safeguard health. These changes require strong city leadership to implement multisectoral, health-relevant policies and public services that engage communities. The response to malaria must be an i...ntegral part of such policies and processes.
This framework supports the control and elimination of malaria in urban environments. It provides guidance for city leaders, health programmes and urban planners as they respond to the challenges of rapid urbanization in a targeted way. For each urban context, the strategic use of data can inform effective, tailored responses and help build resilience against the threat of malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
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The harmful use of alcohol causes approximately 3 million deaths every year and the overall burden of disease and injuries attributable to alcohol consumption remains unacceptably high. The pace of development and implementation of alcohol policies has been uneven in WHO regions, and resources and c...apacities for implementation of the WHO Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol 10 years after its endorsement do not correspond to the magnitude of the problems. On this basis, the WHO Executive Board in its decision EB146 (14) called for accelerated action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.
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The "Questions and Answers on Prevention and control of Alcohol related harm" has been developed by WHO country office in Viet Nam with technical contribution from national and international experts in the field. This publication provides scientific evidences on harms of alcohol use to the health of... users as well as to others and society at large. It provides WHO recommendations for the most effective prevention measures in Viet Nam and will also help answer questions that policy makers may have on how to develop effective policies for prevention and control of alcohol related harms.
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An estimated 1.3 billion people – or 16% of global population worldwide – experience a significant disability today. Persons with disabilities have the right to the highest attainable standard of health as those without disabilities. However, the WHO Global report on health equity for persons w...ith disabilities demonstrates that while some progress has been made in recent years, the world is still far from realizing this right for many persons with disabilities who continue to die earlier, have poorer health, and experience more limitations in everyday functioning than others. These poor health outcomes are due to unfair conditions faced by persons with disabilities in all facets of life, including in the health system itself. Countries have an obligation under international human rights law to address the health inequities faced by persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the Sustainable Development Goals and global health priorities will not progress without ensuring health for all.
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