The future of global environmental health: An integrated modelling approach

ealth can be considered as one of the most important constituents of quality of life. To explore how future health will evolve the health module of the Population& health model PHOENIX has been developed. The main purpose is to describe future health status using of the concept of the health transition, given changes in socio-economic and environmental conditions. Based on the review of existing integrated approaches to health modelling, this health module has been developed and describes various population health outcomes. The additional value of this approach is the integration with other sustainability domains (economic and environment) while preserving the linkage with the empirical data and health concepts. The most relevant health risk factors and the associated diseases have been included, with a special focus on environmental risks. Food and hunger, Water supply and sanitation, cimate change and malaria, energy supply and indoor / outdoor airpollution are amongst the risk factors included, covering already a substantial part of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The results show that many of the health-MDGs will not be achieved, given current policy targets. Policy analyses have been performed to explore how approximate these targets. The use of such an integrated approach enables to have a sound analysis of the economic and social feasibility of these policy options. Especially the integration of health with other fields make these health scenarios very valuable for policy makers, within but also outside the health field .