Challenges in Studying the Relationship of Population, Health and the Environment

The field of population, health, and environment studies has encountered a number of barriers, most notably a limited theoretical framework and incompatible methodologies. Population, Health, and the Environment interact in complex ways, and we need to address them in an integrated fashion and improve the way we study, document and communicate the relationships.

Following are some of the many factors that affect the relationship among population, health and environment.

Demographic – these trends strongly affect the way humans change the natural world. The regional distribution of population, population age, birthrate, health, and migration patterns all have to be taken into account.

Policies and Institutions – can affect can have positive or negative effects and human and environmental well-being. For example, the emission standards for chlorofluorovcarbons (CFCs) enacted through the 1987 Montreal Protocol, slow the deterioration of the ozone layer. Farm subsidies, on the other hand, while helping farmers support their families and grow their businesses, contribute unintended consequences of wasteful resource use, excessive environmental damage, and growing financial strains on governments.

Culture – Together with policies and institutions, cultural factors – beliefs, values, and traditions – influence public support for public policies and the ways that humans interact with their environment. As an example, women’s social status in many less developed countries limits their access to land and education.

Poverty and Wealth – Poverty may promote environmental degradation in a variety of ways. Poor rural families are more likely to support themselves with subsistence slash and burn agriculture, use forest products as fuel, and live in ecologically fragile zones. Disadvantaged minorities are more likely to live in areas that are heavily polluted and that have substandard sanitation and health services.

At the other end of the spectrum, wealth brings greater environmental management opportunities and challenges. As societies grow wealthier, some human-induced environmental problems, such as access to water and sanitation, are expected to improve, while others – such as the generation of solid waste and greenhouses gases – get worse.

Land, Food, and Agriculture – The imbalance between food supply and demand often reflects political and social inequities. Famines generally occur because food is not available where people need it, rather than from overall shortage.

Deforestation – The direct causes of deforestation are themselves symptoms of underlying demographic, social and economic connections. More developed countries such as Japan and the United States can drive deforestation in less developed countries by importing tropical hardwoods. In addition, rising paper consumption has also encouraged overcutting of forests.

Energy Use – Global energy production and consumption have risen steadily for several decades, and this has the greatest potential impact on climate. The vast majority of the world’s energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, in liquid (petroleum), solid (coal or Lignite), or gas (natural gas) form. Average energy use per person is more than nine times greater in developed than in less developed regions.

Climate Change – Carbon dioxide and other gases naturally trap heat as it is radiated from Earth’s surface back to the atmosphere. This “natural” greenhouse effect keeps Earth’s temperature about 60 degree Fahrenheit warmer than it would otherwise be!

Water Availability – About one-third of the world’s population lives in countries suffering from moderate to high amounts of water stress – where water consumption is more than 10 percent of renewable freshwater resources. Lack of access to safe water supplies also results in hundreds of millions of cases of water-related diseases and more than 5 million deaths every year.

Despite the lack of common methodologies to study these various factors in relation to population, health and environment, there is an increasing body of empirical data about the population and health impacts of such things climate change, land degradation, and forest loss. Accordingly, there is greater agreement among scientists about global changes and the factors that contribute to those changes. Satellite and other types of images are providing clearer evidence of what is happening over time.

The ability to track information from different sources with geographic information systems and remote sensing is opening new areas of study. Patterns and trends in human distribution and land and resource use may be analyzed in relation to economic and market activity and changes in geographic and biological measurements.

(Summarized from POPULATION BULLETIN, Sept. 2003 pp3-43, Article by Roger-Mark DeSouza, John S. Williams, and Frederick A.B. Meyerson. Copyright© Population Reference Bureau, Inc., September, 2003.