Environmental Degradation and Disease

Environmental degradation and disease concerns the human health consequences of the deterioration of the natural environment, including air, water, and soil pollution, loss of ecosystem services, and threats to food and water security. Climate change interacts with these processes, sometimes amplifying degradation and sometimes sharing common drivers, so the resulting disease burden is closely linked to the climate-and-health agenda.

Definition

Environmental degradation and disease refers to the adverse health effects that arise when pollution and the depletion of natural systems, such as contaminated air and water, soil degradation, and loss of ecosystem services, increase human exposure to hazards and undermine the environmental conditions on which health depends.

Scope

The topic covers the pathways from degraded air, water, soil, and ecosystems to human disease, the overlap between pollution and climate, and the concept of health co-benefits from reducing shared drivers. It is reference-educational, describing these relationships rather than offering clinical or regulatory prescriptions.

Core questions

• How does degradation of air, water, soil, and ecosystems translate into disease?
• How do pollution and climate change interact and share drivers?
• What are the health co-benefits of reducing those shared drivers?
• Which populations bear the greatest burden of environmental degradation?

Key concepts

• Air, water, and soil pollution
• Ecosystem services and their loss
• Pollution-related disease burden
• Shared drivers of pollution and climate change
• Health co-benefits of mitigation
• Food and water insecurity

Mechanisms

Degradation produces disease through several pathways: pollutants in air, water, and soil increase exposure to toxic agents associated with respiratory, cardiovascular, and other diseases; loss of ecosystem services degrades the regulation of water, food, and disease that natural systems provide; and resource depletion contributes to undernutrition and water insecurity. Many of these processes share drivers with climate change, particularly fossil-fuel combustion, so that measures reducing greenhouse-gas emissions can also cut air pollution, yielding health co-benefits. As with other climate-related pathways, the realised burden depends on exposure and on the vulnerability of affected populations.

Clinical relevance

Understanding how environmental degradation generates disease helps frame the population-level determinants behind many conditions clinicians encounter, supporting prevention and public-health planning. This entry is descriptive: it explains environmental pathways to disease and is not a basis for individual diagnosis or treatment.

Epidemiology

The Lancet Commission on pollution and health estimated that pollution is responsible for a very large share of premature deaths worldwide, with the burden concentrated in low- and middle-income countries. Analyses of measures that target shared drivers, such as reducing methane and black carbon, describe substantial air-quality and health co-benefits alongside climate benefits, illustrating the tight coupling between environmental degradation, pollution, and the climate agenda.

History

Concern about pollution and ecosystem loss as causes of disease developed through twentieth-century environmental health, sharpened by major pollution disasters and growing ecological awareness. As climate science matured, researchers increasingly framed pollution, ecosystem degradation, and climate change as interconnected, with the 2018 Lancet Commission on pollution and health consolidating the global estimate of pollution-related disease and reinforcing the link to climate policy.

Key figures

• Philip J. Landrigan
• Anthony J. McMichael

Seminal works

• landrigan-2018
• mcmichael-2013

Frequently asked questions

How is environmental degradation linked to climate change?

They often share drivers, especially fossil-fuel combustion, and can amplify each other; reducing those shared drivers can lower both pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, producing health co-benefits.

What kinds of disease are associated with environmental degradation?

Reviews link pollution and ecosystem loss to respiratory and cardiovascular disease and other pollution-related conditions, as well as to undernutrition and water insecurity arising from degraded ecosystems, with the burden falling most heavily on low- and middle-income populations.