Social science’s role
We have underlined the need for more research endeavour in the field of environment, health and development. This includes a need for more scientific research in developing countries by environmental and medical scientists on causes and patterns of health burdens, and transmission routes from environment to humans. But if such insights are to progress, to lead to efforts to redress problems, it is vital too that there is a contribution from social scientists from a range of disciplines - anthropology, demography, economics, human geography, legal studies, political science, public health, sociology. Key contributions from social scientists can lie in, for example:
- providing detailed understanding of how poverty shapes and constrains knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, opportunities and actions that can be taken against health risks at individual, household and community levels - such work can play a critical role in informing interventions such as health promotion
- understanding how cultural conceptions of environment interact with conceptions of the self in shaping attitudes and behaviour toward environmental health risks experienced by the poor and marginalized
- analyzing how health systems and related sectors such as water and sanitation systems in developing countries are able to set policies and implement activities relating to environment and health
- understanding broader governance issues relating to the field of environment and health; often, positive actions can be limited by problems of capacity, resources and inter-sectoral coordination - problems that tend to be heightened in conditions of chronic underfunding of public agencies in developing countries
- analyzing the role and potential role of social movements and civil society in galvanizing action toward environmental sustainability and health protection
- developing environment/health criteria as indicators of poverty, inequity and development, and assessing their implications for poverty reduction goals
- assessing the role of health and wellbeing in mediating the effects of environmental hazards and environmental change
- understanding how population dynamics and socio-economic changes interact with environmental change to re-shape environmental health risks and environmental resources for health and wellbeing
- understanding how changing disease burdens within society (especially HIV/AIDS) can impact on local environmental change in the context of poverty
- facilitating the incorporation of scientific knowledge into decision-making and policy formation, through engagement with stakeholder communities
Such contributions require work at varied spatial scales - local, national, global. Some research is likely to entail overlapping scales, for example in work assessing how global climate change impacts and adaptation play out in a local context. They also are likely to require work at different timescales - looking at single events, short-term processes and long-term changes.
Academics from different social science disciplines bring with them different approaches and conceptual innovations, and one of the key activities of this Network will be to share, explore and evaluate the merits of different approaches applied to environment/health problems in the context of development. These may include: approaches drawing on concepts such as sustainable livelihoods, capabilities/entitlements, human security, vulnerability, resilience and adaptation; foci on social determinants of health, transitions, pathways, institutional dynamics and ecosystem services; population health, behavioural/cognitive, cultural epidemiology, ecosystem health and environmental justice approaches.
Multi-disciplinary working
It is a founding principle of this Network that research at the nexus between environment, health and development requires at least a multi-disciplinary understanding, and at best multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary research teams. Understanding human environmental health issues in a holistic sense implies contributions from environmental, medical and social science. The Network seeks to bring together these groups of researchers, and link them with stakeholders from governmental, non-governmental, community-based and private agencies. It welcomes membership from all who share an interest and concern in tracing environment and health linkages solidly in the context of poverty and development processes, with the aim of reducing environmental health risks and promoting wellbeing of the poor.
Working across disciplines can be difficult, both in terms of achieving commonalities in approach and methodology, and in terms of conventional career incentives. But we believe it is the key to successful research in this theme, to translating science into policy, and to promoting enhanced wellbeing of the poor in the process of development.
