Abstract
This chapter revisits sustainable development from perspectives of human health. The authors unfold interlinkages between human health and sustainable development and then identify gaps, which need to be narrowed.
Factors known to influence human health include climate change, environmental degradation, urbanization, societal issues, and disasters. The recent effects of climate change like extreme weather patterns and events have demonstrated negative implication for health, e.g., impacts of heat waves on older persons. Environmental degradation like changing ecosystems due in part to urbanization and microbial adaptation saw emergence of Nipah Virus infection. Societal issues such as changing human demographics and behavior, poverty and social inequality, and international travel may have contributed to India’s excruciating economic damage after the episode of plague in Surat. Post-disaster disrupted living conditions might give rise to epidemics, as in the recent case of outbreaks of infectious diseases after the Tohoku disaster.
Insufficient understanding of the role of human health in sustainable development generates a gap between health and development policies. Weak health policies could keep healthcare systems underdeveloped, which could undermine human health. A popular belief remains that only developed economies like Japan can afford to build good health systems, but her GNP rose sharply in the early 1960s only after roundworm prevalence was controlled. Examining public health in relation to disaster and development, the authors show that promotion of population health is an essential precondition to achieve development and nutrition to sustain development. This chapter reveals that human health is deeply interconnected with social, economic, and environmental aspects, which form vital pillars of sustainable development.
“History teaches that the improvement of human health at the population level is largely determined by good policies that protect the environment and people....”(Peralta and Hung 2003)
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Yoshikawa, M.J., Surjan, A. (2016). Human Health as Precondition for Achieving Sustainable Development. In: Uitto, J., Shaw, R. (eds) Sustainable Development and Disaster Risk Reduction. Disaster Risk Reduction. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55078-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55078-5_7
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