Bioethics Division, Department of Clinical Skills, St George's University, and the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation (WINDREF), St George's, Grenada.
The Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ), and the Department of Social and Preventative Medicine, University of Montreal, Canada.
New Bioeth. 2020 Jun;26(2):158-175. doi: 10.1080/20502877.2020.1767918. Epub 2020 Jun 27.
Health promotion involves social and environmental interventions designed to benefit and protect health. It often harmfully impacts the environment through air and water pollution, medical waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and other externalities. We consider potential conflicts between health promotion and environmental protection and why and how the healthcare industry might promote health while protecting environments. After probing conflicts between promoting health and protecting the environment we highlight the essential role that environmental resources play in health and healthcare to show that environmental protection is a form of health promotion. We then explore relationships between three radical forms of health promotion and the environment: (1) lowering the human birth rate; (2) transforming the food system; and (3) genetically modifying mosquitos. We conclude that healthcare and other industries and their institutions and leaders have responsibilities to re-consider and modify their priorities, policies, and practices.
健康促进涉及旨在促进和保护健康的社会和环境干预措施。它经常通过空气和水污染、医疗废物、温室气体排放和其他外部性对环境造成有害影响。我们考虑健康促进和环境保护之间可能存在的冲突，以及医疗保健行业如何在保护环境的同时促进健康。在探讨促进健康和保护环境之间的冲突之后，我们强调环境资源在健康和医疗保健中的重要作用，以表明环境保护是一种健康促进形式。然后，我们探讨了三种激进的健康促进形式与环境之间的关系：（1）降低人口出生率；（2）改造食品系统；和（3）基因改造蚊子。我们的结论是，医疗保健和其他行业及其机构和领导人有责任重新考虑和修改其优先事项、政策和做法。
