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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on July 19, 2006
The European Journal of Public Health 2006 16(6):579-581; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl102
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Viewpoints

Population health as the ‘bottom line’ of sustainability: a contemporary challenge for public health researchers

Anthony J. McMichael

National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Correspondence: Anthony J. McMichael, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, e-mail: tony.mcmichael@anu.edu.au

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Sustainability is now firmly on society's agenda. For five centuries, the West has proceeded on the assumption of continued progress, leaving a positive legacy to the next generation. This idea was enhanced by enlightenment thinking, the rise of market economics, and the cumulative wealth dividend that flowed from industrial capitalism. The dominant manifestation over the past two centuries has been growth—of population, wealth, knowledge, and our domination of the natural world.

Inevitably, this burgeoning production, consumption, and waste generation eventually overloads many of the natural systems upon which we depend. Today there is evidence of overload: climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, nitrification of the biosphere, acidification of oceans, accelerating loss of species, freshwater shortages, and so on. Clearly, our prevailing cultural values, technologies, and behaviours are not ecologically sustainable: on current trends the natural world cannot continue to furnish the ‘services’ upon which our societies, health, and lives depend.

Therein . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Health as the ‘bottom line’
 

   Research needs
 

   Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases: an unexpected stimulus?
 

   Conclusion
 

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