In recent years, environmental health science has broadened the scope of its inquiries, expanding its investigations beyond the effects of single pollutants on individuals to incorporate the entire panorama of external factors that may affect people’s health. Consideration of the health impacts of the built environment—the human-modified places where we live, work, play, shop, and more—has been a key element in the ongoing evolution of the field of environmental health.

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Modern evolutionary research has much to contribute to medical research and health care practices. Conversely, evolutionary biologists are tapping into the rapidly expanding databases of medical genomic information to further their research. These two fields, which have historically functioned in almost complete isolation, are finding mutual benefit in the exchange of information. The long-term benefits of this synthesis of two major areas of research include improved health care. Recently, efforts to catalyze this relationship have brought together evolutionary biologists, medical practitioners, anthropologists, and ethicists to lay the groundwork for further collaboration and exploration. The range of overlap is surprisingly broad and potentially invaluable.Evolution has not traditionally been considered to be an important aspect of medicine, and medical practitioners and researchers have not traditionally approached their work from the perspective offered by evolutionary biology. Medical practice tends to focus on the immediate, or proximate, causes of disease, including genetics and lifestyle, to identify a potential treatment. An evolutionary viewpoint pushes the focus out farther to look at long-term ecological relationships, including symbiotic bacteria, parasites and pathogens, historical lifestyles, and the genetics of populations. Conversely, evolutionary biologists have not traditionally paid much attention to the medical implications or applications of their findings, with a few exceptions such as the study of emerging infectious diseases. Other evolutionary studies have seemed far removed from contemporary human health issues.Recently, however, these traditions have been giving way to a new approach, as researchers and medical practitioners discover connections based on evolutionary biology that are leading them to new conclusions about their respective fields. Evolution is providing clues about puzzling medical results, and studies of human health are giving us new information about the rate and driving forces of evolution. Initiatives such as the Human Genome Project and the Haplotype Map have provided new tools for studying evolution and human health.

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