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Benefits of Integrating Population, Health, and Environment
August 12, 2011 By Roza Essaw“Mainstreaming Environment and Climate Change: Health,” a joint publication from the International Institute for Environment and Development and Irish Aid, is part of a series that aims to show the links between the environment, climate change, and key development sectors, while suggesting key solutions to move into national policies. This health-focused briefing asserts that “nearly one quarter of the global disease burden can be attributed to the environment.” While anyone is prone to the negative effects of climate change, the poor are especially vulnerable because they often live in some of the most precarious environmental conditions. Consequently, the briefing argues that “improving environmental health – raising its profile at national, state and local levels, and integrating environmental health issues into development plans and activities – is critical if we are to reduce poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals.”
In An Assessment of the Benefits of Integrating Family Planning and Environmental Management Activities in the Visayas Region of the Philippines, a study from the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center, authors Richard B. Pollnac and Kira Dacanay argue that benefits can be reaped from integrated population, health and environment (PHE) development, but only under certain conditions. Factors influencing the level of benefits include “levels of participation in integrated projects [both by individuals and communities], and how NGOs implement these projects.” Thus, it is important to “tailor strategies based on place-based context and personal characteristics of different participants,” write Pollnac and Dacanay. In the Philippines, the authors suggest that one of the actions future PHE initiatives should take is to “stimulate more project participation, with special efforts in larger, less dense communities and tailor strategies better to different targeted populations within the community.”
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