Environmental and Social Determinants of Health

Abstract

[Prologue - Carissa F. Etienne]. In the “Era of Sustainable Development,” health is an essential input and the most valuable human development outcome. Achieving the best health outcomes involves tackling the environmental and social determinants of health that are the subject of this book. Health is often mentioned in the outcome documents of the Rio+20 Conference and the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) established by the Member States and detailed in the report of the UN Secretary-General: The Road to Dignity by 2030: Ending Poverty, Transforming All Lives and Protecting the Planet. The new set of 17 goals includes a stand-alone goal for health— SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages—and addresses the environmental and social determinants of health in the other 16. This book covers most of the health-related SDG themes and, it is hoped, will assist the public health community in creating the intersectoral synergies necessary for implementing the sustainable development goals in the decades to come. The new UN Sustainable Development Agenda recognizes that environmental degradation has its roots in profound social, economic, and technological inequities that can and should be remedied. This means that the entire local and global framework of public policies, initiatives, and programs to promote public health must be expeditiously, critically, and realistically harmonized and modernized to move toward sustainable development with greater justice and solidarity. This publication offers an independent perspective and does not necessarily express the agreements and resolutions of the Governing Bodies of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). In its 31 chapters, more than 100 authors and co-authors from different countries of the Region of the Americas voice their opinions, analyze situations, and offer proposals for strengthening and advancing decision-making capacity, public policies, intervention programs, and the necessary lines of applied research. This English edition of Environmental and Social Determinants of Health expands on and updates the content of the earlier editions published in Spanish in 2010 and Portuguese in 2011. Our hope is that it will foster a general understanding and further the debate about the importance of mitigating the health damage caused by the most pressing environmental and social determinants associated directly or indirectly with health issues. This publication represents PAHO’s continued commitment to more coherent management of the health determinants, grounded in a series of ethical principles and policies geared to promoting the health and well-being of all, especially the most vulnerable population groups.