Globalization and the Sustainability of Human Health

The last half-century has seen momentous and accelerating changes in humankind's economic activities, political relations, and social and demographic profile. A prominent feature of this change is the increasing scale of human impact on Earth's natural biophysical systems: the climate system, stratospheric ozone, biodiversity, terrestrial and marine food-producing ecosystems, and the great cycles of water, nitrogen, and sulfur (Meyer 1996, Vitousek et al. 1997). These systems sustain the conditions on which life depends, and their weakening may therefore have profound long-term implications for human population health (McMichael 1993, Last 1997).