In the face of escalating environmental crisis – climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss – the world is changing. From the increased risk of future pandemics to threatened food and water security and a range of consequences for physical and mental health, these challenges pose serious risks to human health. Planetary Health is an interdisciplinary field that appreciates the fundamental ways in which the environment sustains life and supports human health, and that raises awareness of the human impact on the planet and the risks that environmental crises pose to human health.
Connecting different disciplines
– Planetary Health is an important, interdisciplinary field that looks at the connection between human health and the health of the planet, says senior advisor Christina Brux, who is coordinating the new network known as NORPath, the Norwegian Planetary Health Alliance.
– We saw the need for a Planetary Health network that can bring together diverse stakeholders in the fields of climate, environment and health, fostering collaboration across scientific disciplines, governmental ministries and societal sectors to help solve some of today's most pressing health and sustainability challenges.
NORPath was established in 2022, with funding from the Research Council of Norway and in collaboration between the University of Oslo, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the Norwegian Directorate of Health, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the Norwegian Climate Service Center, the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research and Doctors Without Borders Norway. The principal investigator for NORPath is Jeanette H. Magnus.
Raising awareness of the impact of climate change on human health
– One of our goals in NORPath is to raise awareness that human impact on the planet, through climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution, creates a major risk to human health, says Brux. We are concerned about the reportedly high level of climate change skepticism in Norway. This is something we have written about previously in our national policy brief for the 2022 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.
NORPath also aims to build and maintain national capacity and expertise in Planetary Health, to support innovation that serves sustainability and health, and to facilitate collaboration within Planetary Health at national, regional and international levels.
Norwegian Planetary Health conference in 2024.
NORPath is now in the process of planning the first national Planetary Health conference in the spring of 2024. This will be an important step towards raising awareness of the field and convening the national Planetary Health milieu.
– We hope to bring together as many people as possible with expertise and interest in some of the key areas within Planetary Health. This could be anything from people working in architecture and urban planning, to animal health and environmental conservation, to emergency preparedness and meteorology, to public health and social conditions, says Brux.
Planetary Health
The concept of Planetary Health was launched by a Lancet commission in 2015. In "Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health", the commission writes that human civilization faces grave health risks due to the degradation of the natural systems that sustain all planetary life and the environmental changes that follow, including climate change, ocean acidification, land degradation, water scarcity, overexploitation of fisheries and loss of biodiversity.