Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change: Implications for Public Health

A biodiverse natural environment is a health-promoting resource. A given habitat can simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem (and therefore health) benefits, both directly through, for example, flood risk mitigation and cooling, and indirectly as a resource for cultural and physical activities. The single biggest priority for public health is to work across governments and countries to protect biodiverse natural resources and introduce measures to stem climate change. At a more local level, public health professionals are responsible for devising strategies to promote sustainable lifestyles and facilitate access to natural environments. Modern public health emphasises the reduction of avoidable differences in ill health between the most and least well-off in society. Such strategies therefore need to target those from socio-economically deprived areas, who are most at risk of ill health. Schemes such as nature-based social prescribing or community referral give local commissioners of health services the opportunity to bring people into contact with nature. Those with responsibility for the provision of nature-based schemes should be encouraged to use interventions that bring people into active, rather than passive, contact with nature. Further, targeting such interventions towards exposure to environments with the greatest biodiversity is likely to offer the greatest benefits for human health.