Planetary Health

Prefaces by Marie-Monique Robin and the Planetary Health Alliance Afterword by Bruno Lhoste Human health depends on the health of the planet: the good state of natural systems – air, water, biodiversity, climate – is essential to our survival. But pollution, the scarcity of arable land and fresh water, the erosion of biodiversity, climate change and other threats are deteriorating these systems. An emerging discipline led by Harvard University, planetary health aims to understand how the acceleration of this structural degradation threatens our health, but also how to treat humans and the rest of the biosphere. Planetary Health is an optimistic and accessible gateway to discover this new concept which is gaining momentum, especially since the Covid-19 crisis. Thanks to an interdisciplinary approach, the authors, renowned experts, analyze the many impacts of the Anthropocene on health, particularly in terms of food and nutrition, infections, non-communicable diseases or mental health. Faced with this observation, they defend a new ethic, where all human actions would be aligned with the need to take care of living things in order to fight against environmental changes and their harmful effects. They detail the strategies to be put in place in this direction: controlling exposure to toxic substances, investing in clean energies, improving urban design, etc. Planetary Health is the perfect guide to understanding how our changing environment affects our health, our survival, and that of the planet. Translated from English by Marianne Bouvier and Cécile Giroldi The reference work on the concept of planetary health, revealing the unbreakable links between human activities and their consequences on the health of individuals and ecosystems.