Health Equity and Social Justice

Large numbers of Americans experience higher rates of illness and premature death for reasons that go beyond access to health care, lifestyle choices, and genetics. And yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. spends more than 90 percent of its health budget on downstream, individual medical care.

Few issues cry out for remediation louder than the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in health. The magnitude of these disparities is so great that it has been called the “civil rights issue of the day” – an issue that public health has an obligation to address and remedy.

The field of ecological health recognizes that the physical
well-being of people, nonhuman animals, and their habitats are inseparable. This is a profoundly different notion
from the conventional view of health, in which physicians,
nurses, and others treat human ills; veterinarians tend to the
health of livestock, pets, and wildlife; and conservation biologists
and ecologists address habitat health. But the more we learn
about health, the more ludicrous these artificial divisions become.