This ground-breaking study offers new challenges to those teaching, studying or developing strategies and policies in health and the environment.Bringing together a variety of approaches from different perspectives and different locations, the contributors examine the various dimensions of health ecology in a human ecology framework, examining how local, regional and global factors impinge upon the health and environment of individuals, communities and the globe.

This book provides descriptions of public health problems, including historical background and ecological perspectives.

Restoring Ecological Health to Your Land is the first practical guidebook to give restorationists and would-be restorationists with little or no scientific training or background the “how to” information and knowledge they need to plan and implement ecological restoration activities. The book sets forth a step-by-step process for developing, implementing, monitoring, and refining on-the-ground restoration projects that is applicable to a wide range of landscapes and ecosystems. The first part of the book introduces the process of ecological restoration in simple, easily understood language through specific examples drawn from the authors’ experience restoring their own lands in southern and central Wisconsin. It offers systematic, step-by-step strategies along with inspiration and benchmark experiences. The book’s second half shows how that same “thinking” and “doing” can be applied to North America’s major ecosystems and landscapes in any condition or scale. No other ecological restoration book leads by example and first-hand experience likethis one. The authors encourage readers to champion restoration of ecosystems close to where they live . . . at home, on farms and ranches, in parks and preserves. It provides an essential bridge for people from all walks of life and all levels of experience—from land trust member property stewards to agency personnel responsible for restoring lands in their care—and represents a unique and important contribution to the literature on restoration.

Ecological Public Health demonstrates that although public health medicine is useful and honourable, a radical rethink is required and is, indeed, starting to emerge. It aims to revitalize thinking about public health in terms of ecology, and calls for a concerted combined effort from existing disciplines to bring about reform.

Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth’s natural systems—the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate—are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves provides a readable introduction to this new paradigm. With an interdisciplinary approach, the book addresses a wide range of health impacts felt in the Anthropocene, including food and nutrition, infectious disease, non-communicable disease, dislocation and conflict, and mental health. It also presents strategies to combat environmental changes and its ill-effects, such as controlling toxic exposures, investing in clean energy, improving urban design, and more. Chapters are authored by widely recognized experts. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic overview of a growing field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world. Students of public health will gain a solid grounding in the new challenges their profession must confront, while those in the environmental sciences, agriculture, the design professions, and other fields will become familiar with the human consequences of planetary changes. Understanding how our changing environment affects our health is increasingly critical to a variety of disciplines and professions. Planetary Health is the definitive guide to this vital field.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

This ground-breaking study offers new challenges to those teaching, studying or developing strategies and policies in health and the environment.Bringing together a variety of approaches from different perspectives and different locations, the contributors examine the various dimensions of health ecology in a human ecology framework, examining how local, regional and global factors impinge upon the health and environment of individuals, communities and the globe.

In this groundbreaking, global analysis of the relationship between climate change and human health, Hans Baer and Merrill Singer inventory and critically analyze the diversity of significant and sometimes devastating health implications of global warming. Using a range of theoretical tools from anthropology, medicine, and environmental sciences, they present ecosyndemics as a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between environmental change and disease. They also go beyond the traditional concept of disease to examine changes in subsistence and settlement patterns, land-use, and lifeways, throwing the sociopolitical and economic dimensions of climate change into stark relief. Revealing the systemic structures of inequality underlying global warming, they also issue a call to action, arguing that fundamental changes in the world system are essential to the mitigation of an array of emerging health crises link to anthropogenic climate and environmental change.

Dengue fever is the world’s most prevalent mosquito-borne illness, but Alex Nading argues that people in dengue-endemic communities do not always view humans and mosquitoes as mortal enemies. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in urban Nicaragua and challenging current global health approaches to animal-borne illness, Mosquito Trails tells the story of a group of community health workers who struggle to come to terms with dengue epidemics amid poverty, political change, and economic upheaval. Blending theory from medical anthropology, political ecology, and science and technology studies, Nading develops the concept of “the politics of entanglement” to describe how Nicaraguans strive to remain alive to the world around them despite global health strategies that seek to insulate them from their environments. This innovative ethnography illustrates the continued significance of local environmental histories, politics, and household dynamics to the making and unmaking of a global pandemic.

If you’re experiencing discomfort, fatigue, or other symptoms that won’t go away no matter what you do or how many doctors you see, chances are you’re one of the millions unknowingly suffering from a systemic fungal/yeast infection, "the hidden invader." The result of an imbalance starting in your internal ecosystem, this can be a key factor in headaches, joint and muscle pain, depression, cancer, food allergies, digestive problems, autism, and other immune-related disorders. The Body Ecology Diet reveals how to restore and maintain the "inner ecology" your body needs to function properly, and eliminate or control the symptoms that rob you of the joy of living. Tens of thousands of people have already benefited from the Body Ecology way of life—Donna Gates shows you, step-by-step, how to eat your way to better health and well-being . . . deliciously, easily, and inexpensively! In this book, you will learn how to: · use seven basic universal principles as tools to gain mastery over every health challenge you may encounter; · focus on your inner ecology to create ideal digestive balance; · conquer cravings with strategies for satisfying snacking and for dining away from home; and · plan meals with dozens of delectable recipes, an array of menus, and detailed shopping lists.