Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Evolution Towards an Ecosystem Approach to Public Health

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ecosystems and Human Health

  • 2691 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter discusses the key milestones leading to the emergence of ecosystem approaches to public health thinking, research and practice. The chapter discusses events in three areas that led to public health thinking toward an ecosystem approach. First, the chapter traces evolution of thinking in public health from the “old” public health, through to the “new” public health, and on to the “critical” new public health. The “old” public health is characterized by three phases: the sanitary phase (1840s–1870s), the preventive phase (1870s–1930s), and the therapeutic phase (1930s–1970s). All three phases are associated with the biomedical model of health, with each era defined according to dominant forms of medical knowledge (Brown and Duncan 2002).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Berkman LF, Breslow L (1983) Health and ways of living: the Alameda county study. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bronfenbrenner U (1990) The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. Havard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown T, Duncan C (2002) Placing geographies of public health. Area 33:361–369

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brundtland G (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) (1994) A framework for developing goals, objectives and indicators of ecosystem health: tools for ecosystem management. CCME, Ottawa, ON

    Google Scholar 

  • Colborn T (1996) The great lakes: a model for global concern. In: Di Giulio RT, Monosson E (eds) Interconnections between human and ecosystem health. Chapman & Hall Ecotoxicology Series, London, pp 85–91

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Davies JK, Kelly MP (1993) Introduction. In: Kelly MP, Davies JK (eds) Healthy cities: research and practice. Routledge, London, pp 1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Doyal L (1979) The political economy of health. Pluto, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubos R (1959) The mirage of health: Utopias: progress and biological change. Harper & Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubos R (1968) Man, Medicine and environment. Mentor books, New American Library, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans AS (1976) Causation and disease: the Heule Koch Postulatis revisted. Yale J Biol Med 49:175–195

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Flynn BC (1996) Healthy cities: toward worldwide health promotion. Annu Rev Public Health 17:299–309

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Forget G, Lebel J (2001) An ecosystem approach to human health. Int J Occup Environ Health 7(2 Suppl):S3–S38

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Garret L (1994) The coming plaque: newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • George S (1976) How the other half dies: the real reasons for world hunger. Penguin Books, Harmondworth, Middlesex

    Google Scholar 

  • Great Lakes Research Advisory Board (1978) The ecosystem approach: scope and implications of the an ecosystem approach to transboundary problems in the Great Lakes basin. Special Report to the International Joint Commission

    Google Scholar 

  • Green LW (1984) Modifying and developing health behaviour. Annu Rev Public Health 5:215–236

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Green LW, O’Neill M, Westphal M, Morisky D (1996) The challenges of participatory action research for health promotion. Health Promotion Educ 3:3–5

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hancock T (1990) Healthy and sustainable communities: health, environment and economy at the local level. A presentation at the 3rd Quebec Colloquium on Environ- ment and Health, Quebec City, November. York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hancock T (1993) Health, human development and the community ecosystem: three ecological models. Health Promot Int 8:41–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hancock T, Perkins R (1985) The Mandala of health: a conceptual model and teaching tool. Health Educ 24:8–10

    Google Scholar 

  • International Joint Commission (1991) A proposed framework for developing indicators of ecosystem health for the Great Lakes Region. IJC, Windsor, ON

    Google Scholar 

  • Kickbusch I (1989) Good planets are hard to find – Approaches to an ecological base for public health. In: Brown V (ed) A sustainable healthy future: toward an ecology of health. La Trobi University and Commission for the Future, Melbourne, pp 7–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Lalonde M (1974) A new perspective on the health of Canadians. Ministry of Supply and Services, Canadian Federal Government, Ottawa, ON

    Google Scholar 

  • Laverack G, Labonte R (2000) A planning framework for community empowerment goals within health promotion. Health Policy Plan 15(3):255–262

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (1994) Medicine as culture. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (1995) The imperative of health. Public health and the regulated body. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton D (1998) The emotional self: A socio-cultural exploration. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Matomora MK (1986) A people-centered approach to primary health care implementation in Mvumi, Tanzania. Social Sci Med 28:1031–1037

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKeown T (1971) An historical appraisal of the medical task. in medical history and medical care. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • McKeown T (1976) The role of medicine: Dream, mirage, nemesis? Nuffield Provincial Hospital Trust, London

    Google Scholar 

  • McLeroy KR, Bibeau D, Steckler A, Glanz K (1988) An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Educ Quart 15:351–378

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • McLeroy KR, Steckler AB, Goodman RM, Burdine JN (1992) Health education research, theory, and practice: future directions. Health Educ Res Theory Pract 7:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Series (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment; ecosystems and human well-being: Available online at: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/, accessed 10 May 2010

  • Minkler M (1994) Challenges for health promotion in the 1990s: social inequities, empowerment, negative consequences, and the common good. Am J Health Promot 8(6):403–413

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Minkler M (1999) Personal responsibility for health? A review of the arguments and the evidence at century’s end. Health Educ Behav 26:121–141

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Minkler M, Wallerstein N (eds) (2003) Community based participatory research for health. Jossey-Bass, SanFrancisco, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris JN (1957) Uses of epidemiology. Churchill Livingstone, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Navarro V (1972) Health, health services, and health planning in Cuba. Int J Health Services 2: 397–432

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Neubauer D, Pratt R (1981) The second public health revolution: a critical appraisal. J Health Polit Pol Law 6(2):205–228

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson L (ed) (1990) Feminism/postmodernism. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Pedersen D (1996) Disease ecology at crossroads: man-made environments, human rights and perpetual development utopias. Social Sci Med 43(5):745–758

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rapport DJ (1995). Ecosystem Health: An emerging, integrating science. In, Rapport, D.J., Gaudet C. L., Callow, P (eds) Evaluating and montinoring the health of large-scale ecosystems. NATO ASI Series 1, (28). Springer, Berlin, pp 5–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Rapport DJ, Bohm G, Buckinham D et al (1999) Ecosystem health: the concept, the ISEH, and the important tasks ahead. Ecosyst Health 5:82–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robertson R, Minkler M (1994) New health Promotion Movement: A critical examination. Health Educ Quart 21(3):295–312

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schulz AJ, Krieger J, Galea. S (2002) Addressing social determinants of health: community-based participatory approaches to research and practice. Health Educ Behav 29(3):287–295

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Schwab M, Syme SL (1997) On paradigms, community participation and the future of public health. Am J Public Health 87(12):2049–2054

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sidel V, Sidel R (1973) Serve the People. Observations on Medicine in the People’s Republic of China. Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokols D (1992) Establishing and maintaining healthy environments: toward a social ecology of health promotion. Am Psychol 47:6–22

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Susser M (1987) Falsification, verification and causal inference in epidemiology: reconsiderations in the light of Sir Karl Popper’s philosophy. In: Susser M (ed) Epidemiology, health and society: selected papers. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 82–93

    Google Scholar 

  • Susser M, Susser E (1996) Choosing a future for epidemiology: eras and paradigms. Am J Public Health 86:668–673

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Turner BS (1994) Theoretical developments in the sociology of the body. Aust Cult Hist 13:13–30

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 1992. The global partnership for environment and development. A guide to agenda 21, Geneva, Switzerland, April 1992

    Google Scholar 

  • United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979). Healthy People. The Surgeon General’s report on health promotion and disease prevention. DHEW publication No. (PHS) 79-55071. Washington, DC, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • VanLeeuwen J, Waltner-Toews D, Abernathy T, Smith B (1999) Evolvingmodels of human health toward an ecosystem context. Ecosyst Health 5:204–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization, (1978). Alma-Ata 1978. Primary health care. Geneva

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (1991). The third international conference on health promotion: supportive environments for health – the Sundsvall conference. 9–15 June 1991

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (1992). WHO World Assembly. Resolution 45.32

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (1998) Environmental Health at the Dawn of the Twenty-First: Opportunities and Challenges. Environmental Health News Letter No. 28. Special 50th Anniversary Issue

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (1986) Health promotion: Ottawa charter. In: International conference on health promotion, Ottawa, ON, Geneva, Switzerland, 17–21 November 1986

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

    Crescenti Y. Dakubo Ph.D

Authors
  1. Crescenti Y. Dakubo Ph.D
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Crescenti Y. Dakubo Ph.D .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Dakubo, C.Y. (2011). Evolution Towards an Ecosystem Approach to Public Health. In: Ecosystems and Human Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0206-1_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0206-1_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0205-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0206-1

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation