Health ecology

The main areas of study in health ecology include:

• Zoonoses, which are diseases transmissible between animals and humans (examples: dengue fever, a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes to humans; Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by the bite of an infected tick; rabies, a fatal viral disease transmitted by the bite of an infected animal).
• Environment-related diseases, such as air pollution and water contamination.
• The impact of climate change on health: the increase in vector-borne diseases and extreme weather events. Vector-borne diseases, also known as vector-borne diseases, are infectious diseases that are spread from one host to another by an insect vector (example: mosquitoes transmit diseases such as malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika)
• The role of biodiversity in human health, for example, providing natural medicines and maintaining the balance of ecosystems.

On October 25, 2023, a Partnership Agreement "Ecology of Health" 2023-2030 was signed to take into account integrated approaches to health, in particular the "One Health" or Global Health approach.

For the WHO, "the environment is the key to better health". At a local level, anticipating, preventing and preparing for public health emergencies, in the context of climate change and accelerating globalization that we are currently experiencing, requires strengthening the interaction between science and decision-making.

The 9 areas of cooperation under this agreement

The framework agreement, scheduled to run for 7 years, is structured around 9 areas:

1. Accelerating the transfer of research on environmental factors to better understand and therefore better prevent diseases linked to environmental damage,
2. Study the ecological resilience of ecosystemsto better understand and prevent environmental impoverishment and the factors behind the emergence of infectious diseases and zoonoses,
3. Monitor the ecology and evolution of hosts and reservoirs, vectors and pathogens alike. Objective: Assess risks and develop prevention, surveillance and control strategies,
4. Evaluate the links between management practices, design and planning practices in terms of urban (re)vegetation or changes in peri-urban agroecological practices and vector risks (risks of diseases transmitted by insect vectors such as mosquitoes)
5. Experiment with new tools and strategies for sustainable, integrated management of vectors and vector risk on a territorial scale,(Test new ways of combating insect-transmitted diseases, on our territory, in a sustainable way)
6. Evaluate, monitor and prevent the health impacts of species likely to cause damage, non-native species, of invasive alien species and plant pathogenic species by methods compatible with environmental preservation,
7. Inventorize, enhance and share awareness-raising tools with all players and audiences to improve representations of environmental health and the prevention of risks linked to the environment and biodiversity depletion,
8. Accelerate the contribution of social sciences in environmental health within open science and participatory science research projects and in connection with living laboratory initiatives inviting citizens, residents and users to be actors in research, innovation and changing practices,
9. Propose concrete measuresfor the evolution of legal frameworks for urbanization, citizenship and management of the urban environment.