Looking Back, Zooming In

• Planetary Health centers evidence, equity, and inclusion of diverse knowledge systems to act on the human-caused environmental changes driving the global burden of disease. The trans-disciplinary approach is necessary to ensure well-being for humans and all life on Earth for generations to come. 
• Globally, multilateral reinforcement of the concept of Planetary Health proliferated throughout the year, and health and equity were finally centered in climate discussions as negotiators worked to put nature, people, lives, and livelihoods at the heart of climate action. 
• Health professionals and leaders worldwide demonstrated that they are poised to reshape policies and drive collective action for a healthier, more equitable future in the face of unprecedented crises. 2023 saw the drafting of new economic structures that can move us along the road to making "health for all" a reality.  See the Policy section for more info >
• Working groups drafted the components of the first Planetary Health Roadmap, focused on Policy, Education, Communications, and Business, to be set in motion at the Planetary Health Annual Meeting in April 2024. 
• The Planetary Health Alliance—now over 400 members from 70+ countries strong—has been actively supporting leaders in this important and urgent work. In 2023, the Planetary Health Alliance secretariat moved to a new home at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center close to the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. The move brings many new opportunities to realize our mission of catalyzing the global field of Planetary Health and mainstream its insights and frameworks into action and decision-making. This move is part of establishing a new Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health (JHIPH), which will be the first cross-university Institute of its kind.  

No sooner had the year begun than The Lancet Planetary Health’s special issue on education, spearheaded by PHA leaders, called for transformative, inclusive, and integrative approaches for learning and relearning in the Anthropocene, spotlighting PHA’s Planetary Health Education Framework as a foundational element fueling the transformative potential of education. 

Another powerful call for change was announced in April, compelling over 100 universities and health organizations to sign on to adopt a Planetary Health lens in their education, research, policy, and advocacy. The “Academic Health Institutions’ Declaration on Planetary Health,” developed and launched with PHA and led by all of Canada’s faculties of medicine, establishes accountability on collaboration that de-silos work, leading to the implementation of solutions. The declaration outlines a plan to support the implementation of Planetary Health education and research. An invited comment in The Lancet, “Seeding a planetary health education revolution: institutional sign-on challenge”, co-authored by several PHA leaders, brought renewed attention to this declaration just ahead of COP28. And at the tail end of the year, the World Federation of Public Health Associations proudly endorsed this Declaration and posted the challenge throughout their media channels.

The Earth Day release of the Planetary Health Report Card also crucially bolstered accountability in education as healthcare students demand action on the most pressing challenges in health by identifying learning gaps and opportunities to improve curricula. PHA’s Planetary Health Education Framework is a key resource available to guide curriculum development, while the Planetary Health Expand project is actively working with collaborators to integrate Planetary Health into medical, nursing, and public health curricula.  

In October Sam Myers co-authored a call to action in the World Medical Journal (page 22), urging health practitioners and advocates to use their voices to make a difference locally and globally by evaluating the state of Planetary Health education, inquiring about patients’ environmental health risks in clinical practice, sharing Planetary Health knowledge in daily conversation with friends and colleagues, asking health institutions about their Planetary Health-related activities, and joining Planetary Health action groups.

PHA began its 2023 policy work by co-authoring a UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) Reflection Article published in The Lancet: "Health in global biodiversity governance: what is next?"  

In April Sam Myers was honored to address a session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) with the theme: “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach.” PHA released a Policy Note to elevate the views expressed by Indigenous leaders at UNPFII and to highlight the alignment of Planetary Health with Indigenous Peoples’ concepts of health. 

PHA staff and direct representatives participated in several UN-level events including intergovernmental meetings for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in New York City; the World Health Assembly in Geneva; the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change intersessional and preparatory meeting in Bonn, Germany; and COP28.

In the first time in the history of the global climate negotiations, health was officially on the agenda of COP28. Tens of millions of health professionals were represented by the COP28 Health Letter and the World Health Organization’s call to action. Health ministers and governments delivered the first Climate and Health Declaration. PHA used its convening power to connect those attending COP28 in Dubai, and together with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, Global Commons Alliance, and the Earth Commission hosted a special session at the Malaysia Pavilion on “Planetary Health as a framework to desilo and wire our world for wellbeing.” The dialogue outlined the health implications of transgressing Safe and Just boundaries, discussed how decisionmakers can connect best available social and ecological science to accelerate effective health and climate policy making, and provided inspiration on how to drive policy transformations to the benefit of Planetary Health. 

PHA representatives engaged with other intergovernmental political and economic forums including events facing the G7 and discussions on Planetary Health policy interventions at the C20, which is an official pathway informing the G20 meetings. In July, the G20 Environment and Climate Ministers put forward key elements of Planetary Health in their outcome document by formally recognizing and committing to elements encompassing equitable representation in decision-making processes, the significance of Indigenous Knowledge, the preservation of biological diversity, the recognition of pollution's adverse effects on human health, and the imperative of taking action on climate change along with addressing its associated financial requirements.

In May the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All dropped a landmark report that charts the course for reorienting economies, "Health for All: Transforming economies to deliver what matters.” Planetary Health is, plain and simple, Recommendation #3 of this bold new narrative grounded in a new economic paradigm. This is the narrative - embedding the Planetary Health framework into future economic models – that will be squarely on the agenda of 2024’s Summit of the Future. Planetary Health guides the development of the kind of world that we want to live in.

“In our final report, we call for new economic policy that is not about market fixing but about proactively and collaboratively shaping markets that prioritize human and planetary health.” - Mariana Mazzucato, Chair, World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All