DCID-affiliated professor Subhrendu Pattanayak gave a talk at the National Academy of Sciences, linking forest fires in Indonesia, smoke, birth effects and long terms economic impacts, as part of the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium Economics, Environment and Sustainable Development at the Beckman Center in Irvine, CA on January 17-18, 2018.
The talk is a follow up to papers Pattanayak wrote with both Randy Kramer (Duke Global Health Institute) and Sir Andy Haines (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
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Implementation of policies to protect planetary health
Pattanayak, Subhrendu K et al. The Lancet Planetary Health , Volume 1 , Issue 7 , e255 – e256
Extensive evidence exists that human health and civilisation depends on flourishing natural systems.1 The Rockefeller–Lancet Commission on planetary health summarised how climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater depletion, and air and water pollution threaten to reverse advances in human health and increase health inequities worldwide.2 For example, increasing carbon dioxide concentrations and declines in animal pollinators will exacerbate micronutrient deficiencies and risks of non-communicable disease.
Ecosystem change and human health: implementation economics and policy.
Pattanayak, SK, Kramer, RA, and Vincent, JR. (published online April 24.)Phil Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017;
Several recent initiatives such as Planetary Health, EcoHealth and One Health claim that human health depends on flourishing natural ecosystems. However, little has been said about the operational and implementation challenges of health-oriented conservation actions on the ground. We contend that ecological–epidemiological research must be complemented by a form of implementation science that examines: (i) the links between specific conservation actions and the resulting ecological changes, and (ii) how this ecological change impacts human health and well-being, when human behaviours are considered. Drawing on the policy evaluation tradition in public economics, first, we present three examples of recent social science research on conservation interventions that affect human health. These examples are from low- and middle-income countries in the tropics and subtropics. Second, drawing on these examples, we present three propositions related to impact evaluation and non-market valuation that can help guide future multidisciplinary research on conservation and human health. Research guided by these propositions will allow stakeholders to determine how ecosystem-mediated strategies for health promotion compare with more conventional biomedical prevention and treatment strategies for safeguarding health.
