Public health, the environment and the 21st century: a wider field of vision

摘要

As we enter the 21st century, there is rising awareness that the global population of 6.7 billion humans is overloading many of Earth's environmental systems. The collective demand of Homo sapiens for materials, food, freshwater and waste absorption has escalated enormously over the past century. We currently use natural resources (sources, sinks and system stabilisers) at an estimated 25% higher rate than the planet can sustain.A future brief history of environmental health in today's high-income countries might note three main phases: (i) latter 19th century: sanitary engineering, urban waste disposal, food safety and domestic hygiene, primarily to combat infectious disease risks; (ii) latter 20th century: environmental (and occupational) laws and policies to reduce exposures to specified toxic chemical exposures: air pollutants, heavy metals, industrial and agricultural chemical effluents and (iii) 21st century: recognition and (hopefully) reduction of health-endangering damage to Earth's geophysical and ecological systems.