@HEALenviron #HEAL2021
Environmental change, accelerated by human activities, is degrading the quality of air, soil, water and food, and posing a significant threat to human health.
While environmental and climate change pose great challenges to health, there is great potential for well-targeted mitigation and adaptation policies to reduce environmental impacts, protect and improve human health, build health system and community resilience, and progress towards a healthier, fairer and more sustainable world. This involves urban, rural and remote health interventions that strengthen the resilience of communities, and the health sector in particular, to environmental change.
Respectful integration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and Western concepts of health and related knowledge systems is essential to this effort, recognising that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of health holistically encompass connection to culture, family, language, community, and Country.
The objective of the HEAL 2021 conference is to provide an inspirational forum for knowledge transfer, scientific debate, and community-wide conversations about research and policy priority setting on human health, climate and environmental change solutions in Australia.
Expected outcomes include a transformational vision statement and policy briefing on human health and environmental change research, enhanced community engagement, a collection of articles to be published as a special issue in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and collaborative and co-designed research funding applications on relevant topics.