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Parasites and Conservation Biology
Published in Eric S. Loker, Bruce V. Hofkin, Parasitology, 2023
Eric S. Loker, Bruce V. Hofkin
As we have noted above, one of the keys to preserving species diversity is to maintain the integrity or health of the ecosystems in which the species live. A healthy ecosystem is one that persists through time, retaining productivity and diversity and one that is resilient to change. How can such an elusive parameter as ecosystem health be measured? One approach is to gauge the extent to which indigenous parasites are maintained by the ecosystem in question. As we noted in Chapter 6, many of the trophic links in natural food webs are composed of parasites and their hosts. Linkages involving parasites are common because each host species will likely harbor one or more parasite species, and in addition, many parasites have complex life cycles that require as many as three or even four different host species to complete. The continued presence of such kinds of parasites in the environment serves as a proxy to indicate all the component hosts are present and the trophic linkages among them are intact.
UN Sustainable Development Goals and Planetary Health:
Published in Connie White Delaney, Charlotte A. Weaver, Joyce Sensmeier, Lisiane Pruinelli, Patrick Weber, Nursing and Informatics for the 21st Century – Embracing a Digital World, 3rd Edition, Book 4, 2022
Teddie Potter, Carlos Alberto Faerron Guzmán, Karen A. Monsen, Carolyn M. Porta, Andre Uhl
Planetary health explicitly uses social and environmental determinants of health frameworks (i.e., that incorporate in the analysis of health outcomes elements of policy, governance, gender, place of work, ethnicity, natural resources, and built environment) to understand how health outcomes are interconnected with human-induced changes to Earth's natural systems (Myers, 2017). This planetary health lens ‘promotes a social and ecological approach to health promotion and disease prevention, ranging from individual to population-level determinants of human, animal, and ecosystem health' (Faerron Guzmán et al., 2021a, p. 23). Additionally, the planetary health approach moves beyond anthropocentric health models and incorporates animal and ecosystem determinants of health frameworks. For planetary health, using these multitudes of analytical lenses is a crucial tenant to achieve the improvements in well-being not just of humans but also across species and ecosystems (Card et al., 2018).
Climate health is human health
Published in Lester D. Friedman, Therese Jones, Routledge Handbook of Health and Media, 2022
Carol-Ann Farkas, Shoshannah Bryn Jones Square
While the recognition that “climate health is public health” has been “news” since The Lancet’s 2015 Report on Health and Climate Change, the connection has been integral to environmentalist thinking for much longer, acquiring greater urgency with the seemingly relentless rise in average global temperatures. As Horwitz and Parkes put it, “humans are ‘part of,’ and not ‘apart from,’” the natural world. Consequently, our health depends on “landhealth” or “landsickness” (Leopold qtd. in Horwitz and Parkes). Landsickness will manifest as “somaterratic illness,” harm to physical wellness caused by damage to the ecosystem. And beyond the effects of climate change that are most immediately experienced, our awareness of profound danger takes a toll on mental wellbeing, too, in the form of “psychoterratic illness.” Albrecht coined the associated term “solastalgia” to describe “pain or distress” when there is the “lived experience of the physical desolation of home” (S95). As the Lancet Report put it, “solastalgia is connected to ‘dis-ease,’ or a lack of ease due to a hostile environment that a person is powerless to do anything about.” Galway et al. add that, “[g]iven the speed and scale of climate change alongside biodiversity loss, pollution, deforestation, unbridled resource extraction, and other environmental challenges, more and more people will experience solastalgia” as we are forced to confront “the links between human and ecosystem health, specifically, the cumulative impacts of climatic and environmental change on mental, emotional, and spiritual health” (Galway et al.).
Using mobile phones as light at night and noise measurement instruments: a validation test in real world conditions
Published in Chronobiology International, 2022
Nahum M. Gabinet, Hassan Shama, Boris A. Portnov
The importance of ALAN and noise measurements for large-scale chronobiological studies, carried out in real-world conditions, is due to potentially adverse effects of these environmental risk factors on human morbidity, attributed, inter alia, to MLT suppression, general stress and circadian disruption (Haim and Portnov 2013). The effects of these environmental risk factors on ecosystem health are also substantial (Slabbekoorn 2019; Svechkina et al. 2020). However, the use of bulky and often expensive laboratory equipment for monitoring these environmental risk factors, especially in large scale real-world experiments, is not always feasible. Therefore, in this study we tested a possibility of using widely available SPs for ALAN and noise monitoring, which might facilitate future large-scale individual-level studies of biological rhythms, to be carried out in real-world conditions.
Growing up with faith, trust and maturity toward Pan-Asian indigenous health equity
Published in International Journal of Healthcare Management, 2021
Ecosystem health and correlation to indigenous population health remain suboptimally understood. Climate change, environmental instability and unsustainable resources affect traditional medicine for the indigenous. Too, vector-borne illness is affected by environmental change. In recent years, Malaysian indigenous were found to have high prevalence of leptospira antibodies [33]. Leptospira thrives in wet and tropical conditions, with flooding and weather extremes potentially aiding vector transmission. The importance of communicable disease surveillance, prevention and public health protection as a component to ecosystem health is crucial. Additionally, other factors that contribute to environmental instability consequences also remain poorly understood. Factors including agricultural unreliability, weather, water issues and ineffectiveness of traditional food seeking remain a concern. In fact, these factors have shifted traditional land sourcing to market goods in Malaysia [33]. Food insecurity threats due to climate change continue to be a future threat [34]. The relationship between environmental health and Pan-Asian indigenous health remains unclear, concerning and under-researched.
Mental health impacts of the climate crisis: the urgent need for action
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2022
Despite this bleak background, solutions are emerging, offering a glimmer of hope for the future. There is growing awareness that it is a false dichotomy to separate human health and ecosystem health and that access to and the nurture of the natural environment have the dual benefit of delivering mental health improvement and restoring nature. A study of nature based activities offered as a therapeutic intervention in a child and adolescent mental health service has demonstrated this, as outcomes included wide-ranging health benefits as well as an enhanced appreciation of the environment. The authors recommend that nature restoration activities should become an essential component of the mental health armamentarium of interventions.