2019 Articles

Planetary health: from concept to decisive action

Pongsiri, Montira J.; Bickersteth, Sam; Colón, Cristina; DeFries, Ruth S.; Dhaliwal, Mandeep; Georgeson, Lucien; Haines, Andrew; Linou, Natalia; Murray, Virginia; Naeem, Shahid; Small, Roy; Ungvari, Judit

Planetary health sets the ambitious task of understanding the dynamic and systemic relationships between global environmental changes, their effects on natural systems, and how changes to natural systems affect human health and wellbeing at multiple scales: global (eg, climate), regional (eg, transboundary fire emissions), and local (eg, persistent organic pollutants). By emphasising interconnections between human health and environmental changes and enabling holistic thinking about overlapping challenges and integrated solutions for present and future generations, the concept of planetary health offers an opportunity to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including identification of co-benefits across targets, encouraging effective cross-sector action and partnerships, and ensuring policy coherence. In turn, the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offers substantial opportunities to advance planetary health. As the scientific evidence strengthens and public appreciation of humanity's dependence on the state of natural systems increases, now is the time to move from concept to decisive action to protect planetary health.