Exploring Ecosystems and Health by Shifting to a Regional Focus: Perspectives from the Oceania EcoHealth Chapter

Abstract

This article highlights contributions that can be made to the public health field by incorporating “ecosystem approaches to health” to tackle future environmental and health challenges at a regional level. This qualitative research reviews attitudes and understandings of the relationship between public health and the environment and the priorities, aspirations and challenges of a newly established group (the Oceania EcoHealth Chapter) who are attempting to promote these principles. Ten semi-structured interviews with Oceania EcoHealth Chapter members highlighted the important role such groups can play in informing organisations working in the Oceania region to improve both public health and environmental outcomes simultaneously. Participants of this study emphasise the need to elevate Indigenous knowledge in Oceania and the role regional groups play in this regard. They also emphasis that regional advocacy and ecosystem approaches to health could bypass silos in knowledge and disciplinary divides, with groups like the Oceania EcoHealth Chapter acting as a mechanism for knowledge exchange, engagement, and action at a regional level with its ability to bridge the gap between environmental stewardship and public health.

Transmission of Opisthorchis viverrini, Schistosoma mekongi and soil-transmitted helminthes on the Mekong Islands, Southern Lao PDR

“…Ecohealth research is an emerging field of research studying human health in close connectivity with the ecosystem [ 32 ]. It is increasingly conducted to strengthen the sustainability of infectious disease control programmes [ 33 – 35 ] and was widely introduced in Southeast Asia (SEA) by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in the late 2000s [ 36 , 37 ]. Ecohealth has been defined as follows: i) “EcoHealth involves research and practice to promote sustainability of individuals, animals and biodiversity by linking complex interaction of ecosystem, socio-cultural and economic factors” and ii) “Ecohealth is a comprehensive approach to understanding health at its human, animal and environmental interface in a socio-ecological systems context”.…”

Policies, Politics, and Paradigms: Healthy Planning in Australian Local Government

“…The close link between the health of the human population and that of the planet [1] is recognised through the concept of planetary health [2][3][4][5]. Such a concept is not new; indigenous societies have long understood this relationship [6,7] through the perspective that "human health cannot be seen separately from ecosystems" [8] (p. 301). Today, however, given the increasing rates of urbanisation [9], this link is most obviously manifested in the built environment [10][11][12][13].…”

Oceania

“…Stark differences in social (for example wealth, governance structures and cultural groups) and ecological (including topography, ecosystem degradation and susceptibility to natural disasters) realities characterize this unique place on the planet (Wardell-Johnson et al, 2011;Jenkins et al, 2011;Grantham et al, 2011). Such a complex region holds key learnings to not only improve public health but ecosystem approaches to health and sustainability research and action (Kingsley et al, 2015).…”

“…Secondly, Oceania's vulnerable and diverse ecosystems and compounding issues such as natural disasters and geographical isolation provides a case study for other regions that will face similar concerns in the future (Kingsley et al, 2015). Oceania has the most to lose, from the pressures of global political, environmental and economic change.…”

“…Whilst there is strong Indigenous peoples' leadership in the Chaptermore can be done to build alliances and involve Indigenous knowledge holders in setting the direction. What the Chapter has provided is a platform through which scholars and students can integrate ecosystem approaches to health in Oceania that merges public health and environmental stewardship (Kingsley et al, 2015).…”