Book Review

by Paul Ganderton

Honari M. and Boleyn T. (eds.) 1999. Health Ecology. Routledge. Pp xviii + 275. ISBN 0 415 15447 2.

There are very few texts dealing with health and environmental/ecological issues; a situation thrown into even greater contrast when we know the importance of health and the health problems facing many nations. It is good to see one text addressing some of the issues. Here the emphasis is on the concept of an ecology of health and what this means to the population: what influences health at a number of scales. An opening chapter looks at the links between health and human ecology. Health is defined as a sustainable state of total well-being - the links with other aspects of sustainability are made explicit. The remaining text is divided into three sections. The first section takes the macro-system view looking at global public health and its links with other concepts such as conservation, ecology, sustainable development and politics. Part two looks at micro-systems - the ecology of specific areas (in this case, women, children and homes). Four case studies make up part three. There's reference to health and natural healing systems, rural health care, water and health impact assessment.

This is a novel approach to a new field. It attempts to construct a framework for study and set out an agenda (similar to Agenda 21 at Rio) for future discussion. Although not aimed at the beginner there's a good deal of useful information that could be passed to students.