The transformation needed to improve lives and well-being sustainably through healthy environments

“The current situation and the challenges ahead call for a transformation in the way we manage our environment with respect to health and well-being. Current approaches have laid the foundations, but they have not proven sufficient for sustainably and efficiently reducing environmental risks to health and building health-supportive and enabling environments – hence the call for a new strategy on health, environment and climate change”.

A healthy environment is vital for human health and development. 

Approximately one quarter of all deaths worldwide (13 million deaths) each year are attributed to environmental causes. Global environmental changes such as climate change and loss of biodiversity increasingly affect people’s health and well-being. However, the burden of these changes are not felt equally. Food and water scarcity, protection from extreme weather, and loss of ecosystem stability are just some of the global challenges exacerbated by climate change that affect the health of populations differently. 

To respond to these challenges, a new global strategy on health, environment and climate change has been developed by the World Health Organization and broadly supported by countries during the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019. This strategy aims to transform the way we tackle environmental risks to health and ensure a safe, enabling, and equitable environment. It re-imagines our way of living, working, producing, consuming, and governing by accounting for health in all policies and scaling up disease prevention.

Click here to read more: Draft WHO global strategy on health, environment and climate change: the transformation needed to improve lives and well-being sustainably through healthy environments.