Social and Cultural Perspectives on Ecology and Health

The health of ecosystems and the health of people are intertwined. As complex adaptive systems, ecosystems are foundational to human health. If ecosystems are polluted or degraded, there are impacts on the vitality of all forms of life. For the greater part of human evolution on Earth, our lives were played out within the preexisting order and processes of natural ecosystems. Only in the last 200 or so years has humanity diverged from that order and substituted a new form of order, one based mainly on energy from fossil fuels and an industrialized, consumer-oriented economy. The new order is now so powerful that it shapes all major global systems that support life. Anthropogenic forces are now changing the climate and other foundational ecosystems in ways that affect health. In addition to biomedical impacts, there are social and cultural impacts of this new world order. We need transdisciplinary social and cultural investigation of both the causes and the impacts of our own pressures on the foundations of public health. Ecosystem, ecohealth, and ecocultural approaches to health represent an emergent framework that can integrate many aspects of public health research and practice in the twenty-first century.