Learning from Eco-social Approaches to Public Health
On April 18th, several LEAPH Lab Members presented at the Planetary Health Alliance Meeting (PHAM) 2024 Conference.
Addressing the complex and interconnected eco-social-health issues we experience today necessitates upstream, solutions-oriented, and whole-systems thinking. Specifically, exploring what it means to live in reciprocity with the planet and all living systems now and for generations to come can play a crucial role in advancing planetary health. In this presentation, we shared findings from three gatherings we co-designed and co-hosted to connect communities, lands, waters, climate, and health. We drew lessons from two events in the Cowichan watershed (co-host: Cowichan Tribes) and the Stellako and Nechako watersheds (co-host: Stellat’en First Nation) that were co-designed with the ECHO Network. These gatherings brought together youth, Indigenous leaders, researchers, and health, community, and environmental decision-makers across British Columbia to learn how to come together to address connected health, environmental, and community concerns. We supplemented these findings with insights from a co-hosted conversation connecting 43 countries over 24-hours of continuous dialogue on the theme of working together for a healthy, just, and sustainable planet. These gatherings each provided lessons about how Indigenous-led, integrative approaches that connect the health of people, to lands, waters, and ecosystems can elevate and enhance our work and scholarship. Specifically, initiatives co-designed in this way, help overcome challenges that arise when addressing boundary-crossing, intersectional and intersectoral issues at the nexus of climate, public health and planetary health. Our findings included insights into strengthening research and public health capacity for integrative approaches to complex issues that are relevant to place-based contexts and have implications and applications for planetary health. Our presentation summarized how these gatherings – each of which were fueled by a sense of love for the planet, each other, and future generations – have progressed intersectoral, intergenerational, boundary-crossing, and transformative approaches to planetary health. These insights help guide future directions for planetary health research, practice, and policy.