Environment and Health

Health concerns take a prominent position among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With many infectious diseases (tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/Aids) spreading rapidly across developing countries, resource management cannot ignore the importance of the sustained health of the people it seeks to protect. Therefore, trans-disciplinary research on human health should be an integral component of ZEF's research program on Global Environmental Change and Human Development.

In focusing on the connection between anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment and how they affect human health, ZEF aims to identify particularly vulnerable segments of the population and to formulate policies that ameliorate their situation. While doing so, ZEF explicitly acknowledges the significance of socio-economic factors and cultural values within local contexts, as the causes of disease often lie, at least partially, in the social, economic, cultural, and spiritual context of the patients. ZEF will therefore take such social factors regarding health and diseases into consideration. Issues to be addressed further include risk assessments, existing coping strategies, and risk management to reduce the poverty-illness linkage and improve resilience.

In its research program on development issues related to health, ZEF will investigate the necessity and capacity of the public sector to address the higher demand for health care. The design of health programs as well as public spending will face tremendous challenges in the future as the anticipated costs of the infectious diseases to the economy, and their impact on human welfare and development are enormous. These questions also relate to issues of the efficiency of allocating governmental resources.

ZEF will analyze whether public expenditure on health care is targeted efficiently and reaches those who need it most. The question is which factors drive public programs and investments in health care and how to design efficient public programs that reduce the danger of supply bottlenecks, e.g. when granting mosquito nets only to mothers with a new born baby in order to reduce the impact of malaria as opposed to freely distributing mosquito nets. A major contribution of the research conducted at ZEF will aim at designing policies and strategies to develop efficient public health care schemes that improve access to health care.

Environment and health research is carried out in close collaboration with three departments at ZEF:

• The department of political and cultural change (ZEFa),
• the department of economics & technological change (ZEFb), and
• the department of ecological & natural resources management (ZEFc).