The world’s population will approach nine billion people by 2050, altering the requirements of, and consequences for, our environment. Inevitably, this complicated relationship between our expanding global population and the environment will have implications for the climate, our planet, and for societies. Pressures on the environment influence biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, land degradation, and water scarcity. Climate change can affect human health through the direct outcomes of hazards such as heatwaves, floods and storms, or through the indirect effects of disrupted ecosystems and altered patterns of infectious diseases. Our environmental impacts pose especially urgent threats to vulnerable populations who have contributed the least to their causes. In order to sustain the planet and the people living on it, we need to expand our knowledge of energy, sustainability, water and food security, humans as part of the global ecosystem, and the nexus with health outcomes.
Vulnerability and Environment
Subthemes
Climate & Conflict
Sustainability & Health
Displaced & Disasters
CLIMATE & CONFLICT
The effects of climate and environmental change, such as increasing temperatures, sea-level rises, changing patterns of precipitation, and more severe extreme weather events are expected to influence key determinants of human health, including access to clean water, sufficient food, and adequate shelter. These effects can also directly and indirectly aggravate political and civil conflicts; destabilize agriculture, housing, and economies; and exacerbate health risks for vulnerable populations, in particular women and children. The social destabilization caused by drought, flood, famine, and diseases that follow crises, including epidemics, may aggravate political and civil conflicts as those affected compete for essential resources. Addressing these challenges demands global and multi-sectoral coordination across borders.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
JAMA: Climate and Health
This resource portal from JAMA provides a variety of publications, articles, and research focused on climate and health. The resources explore the connections and impacts of climate change and extreme weather on infectious disease, health care delivery, population health, and other topics. The portal draws materials from all of the JAMA journals, but users can filter resources by JAMA publication, article type, or keyword. Resources are regularly updated, and most are available for download.
Triple Threat: How Disease, Climate Risks, and Unsafe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Create a Deadly Combination for Children
This report from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) examines the water, sanitation, and hygiene-related threats facing children worldwide, highlighting the triple burden caused by the intersection of access to WASH services, the burden of WASH-related diseases, and growing climate risks. The report finds that globally, 600 million children do not have safely managed drinking water, 1.1 billion lack safely managed sanitation, and 689 million lack basic hygiene services. The report details the causes and impact of water insecurity globally―from population growth to conflict and migration―and examines countries with the highest triple burden of WASH-related threats.
The Lancet Planetary Health
This resource portal from The Lancet focuses on planetary and environmental health, climate change, and human health. It presents the latest issue of The Lancet Planetary Health and provides several articles, commentaries, news items, and featured content from the journal related to these issues. These resources explore the relationship between human and planetary health. They discuss the impacts of climate change and other environmental issues on health indicators such as mortality, pregnancy losses, the burden of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the food system, as well as economic outcomes.
SUSTAINABILITY & HEALTH
Sustainable global economic development depends on fostering shared prosperity for the next generation, while reducing poverty and protecting the environment now. To support a world population of more than 9 billion people, unsustainable patterns of resource consumption need to be interrupted, food and agricultural systems need to be strengthened, and measures to prevent further exploitation of the environment need to be implemented. Sustainable use of land, water, and fuel resources depend on balanced policies that engage multiple sectors, including energy, engineering, agriculture, water, health, education, business, government, and civil society. As land use decisions impact climate across borders, health and sustainability efforts call for awareness and change that extends beyond communities and countries, to cross-sectoral alliances and coordinated international collective action.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
Lancet Series 2023: One Health and Global Health Security
This Lancet series explores the adoption of One Health approaches to improve global health security, an approach that considers the interconnection between humans, animals, and the environment on health. One Health describes an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and collaborative approach that bridges the human, animal, and environmental sectors to achieve better health outcomes. In the wake of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and infectious disease outbreaks such as the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, One Health approaches to improve health security have received increased financial and political support worldwide. These Series articles explore the adoption of One Health approaches to strengthen health security and examine the current systems in place for prevention, surveillance, and responses to infectious disease outbreaks.
Global Heat Health Information Network
The Global Heat Health Information Network is an online platform dedicated to raising awareness and capacity to deal with the human health risks of extreme heat.In addition to providing accessible explainers on how heat impacts health, the website also includes resources dedicated to risk communication and reporting on extreme heat, as well as links to online learning and tools and datasets that may be of use to educators or practitioners. Resources including research papers, case studies, and outreach materials can also be found in the network’s resource library.
The State of Food and Agriculture 2023
This report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) analyzes global agrifood systems and the costs of sustainable food systems. This year’s report discusses the hidden health, environmental, and social costs of agrifood systems– along with the benefits– and provides a framework, true cost accounting (TCA), to assess these costs and work toward sustainability in food systems. The report urges the need for in-depth assessments of the hidden costs of agrifood systems to guide policymakers and inform decision-making in transforming agrifood systems.
DISPLACED & DISASTERS
Disasters can profoundly affect health, as people are forced to flee familiar support structures at short notice. Earthquake, fire, flood, tornadoes, and abrupt civil conflict such as geopolitical and security crises can all trigger population displacement that may result in social and economic destabilization. Hazards and shocks will inevitably occur, but measures can be taken to mitigate the negative effect on human development. Protecting the people at greatest risk requires identifying and targeting the most vulnerable groups and addressing underlying drivers such as social marginalization, social inequality, and insufficient infrastructure and services. As more people around the world become vulnerable to environmental risks, there is a critical need to build community resilience, implement early detection systems, and invest in strategies and policies that address the structural causes of vulnerability.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
Food Security Information Network
The Food Security Information Network (FSIN) is a global information sharing platform co-funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Food Programme, and International Food Policy Research Institute focused on using data to shape policies, projects, decision-making, and programs to reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. The FSIN primarily emphasizes using data analytics to produce and promote timely information, global reports and analyses, and strategic initiatives that can strengthen responses to food crises and inform preventing crises. The FSIN also works on resilience measurement of its programs and decision-making progress on the country- and regional level.
United States Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a leading international development agency focused on advancing U.S. national security and leading global development and humanitarian efforts. Founded in 1961, USAID provides foreign assistance and disaster relief in over 100 countries worldwide, with the primary aims of strengthening democratic governance, reducing poverty, and improving livelihoods of communities across the globe to promote human progress and stable societies.
World Risk Report 2023
This flagship report published by Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft, in partnership with the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict at the Ruhr University Bochum, focuses on diversity in the context of global disasters, analyzing the relationship between crises, marginalized populations, and societal structures. Built on the World Risk Index Data, the 2023 report ranks 193 countries on their risk of experiencing disaster or vulnerability to extreme natural events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and drought. This year’s report highlights the disproportionate impacts of crises and disasters on specific communities, such as women, children, older people, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ communities.
Regional Profile
Natural Disasters in Bangladesh
Bangladesh, with a population of 151 million people, is a country that is particularly prone to natural disasters. One in four people live in areas affected by cyclones and nearly three in four people live in flood-prone regions. How has Bangladesh been able to reduce disaster-associated mortality in the past 50 years? The government, together with the private sector and civil society, have mobilized on multiple simultaneous fronts—cyclone shelters have been built, warning strategies developed, and mechanisms for rapid response implemented. In addition to overall improvements in health, the country has tackled social determinants with multi-sectoral efforts to reduce poverty, promote gender equality, and improve education—all of which can mitigate the effect of natural disasters. A major challenge Bangladesh faces, in the context of climate change and an anticipated increase in weather-related events, is how to continue to improve upon these strategies in the face of rapid urbanization and population growth. Learn More.
Population Snapshot
Gender, Climate and Health
The effects of climate on human society, and our ability to mitigate and adapt to them, are mediated by social factors, including gender. Many of the health risks that are influenced by environment and climate change show gender differentials. For example, droughts, floods and storms kill more women than men, and they tend to kill women at a younger age. Gender-related differences are also found in vulnerability to the indirect and longer-term effects of climate-related hazards. For example, droughts can influence health through the reduction in availability of clean water and through food insecurity. Not only do women and girls bear the greatest burden for physically obtaining water for their families, but they also disproportionately suffer the health consequences of under-nutrition. Women can make an important contribution to disaster reduction through participating in decisions at the household level that will ultimately enhance resilience, through collaborative efforts at the community-level to implement strategies for disaster management, and through engagement at the policy-level by acting as agents of social change. To learn more, read the first WHO report on the interactions between climate change, gender and health.
Sector Perspective
Landmark Climate Accord
Representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change. Delegates who had been negotiating intensely in Paris for two weeks achieved what had been unreachable for two decades: a consensus on the need to move away from carbon-based fuels and a plan for the 195 nations to do so. At the heart of the final deal is a breakthrough on an issue that has foiled decades of international efforts to address climate change. Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies, such as the United States, to take action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries, such as China and India, from such action. The new accord changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor. Learn More.
Featured
Find Food Security Resources
Today, one billion people across the world struggle to obtain the food they need to lead healthy and productive lives. Food insecurity is inextricably linked with other social, economic and environmental challenges including forced migration, land degradation and resource scarcity shaped by climate change, urbanization, weak markets and poor governance. The Food Security Information Network (FSIN) is a global initiative co-sponsored by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Food Programme, and International Food Policy Research Institute to strengthen food and nutrition security information systems for producing reliable and accurate data to guide analysis and decision-making. FSIN serves as a neutral technical platform for exchanging expertise, knowledge and best practices, developing harmonized methods and tools, and providing resources related to Food Security and Information systems. Learn More.