Introducing the Urban Health Lexicon

There is a need to introduce a more ecological and systemic lexicon to public health. Ecology is defined as the relationship between organisms and their environment. An ecological approach to public health would examine the interaction of multiple elements that affect a person’s health as part of a connected ecosystem which includes the places a person inhabits and their experiences within them. Thirdly, to learn more about the relationship between people and health, our lab has concentrated its studies on the Hypothalamic- Pituitary- Adrenal- Axis (HPA-Axis), which is one of the main systems that mitigates the stress response.

With this framing we can understand health through various lenses such as climate change, social/racial injustice, environment degradation, and poverty.

In doing so we can create a more accurate framing of health that can bring about health and environmental justice to communities that have been structurally marginalised. Additionally, an ecological framing could allow for innovation in preventive health, healing our environments is a key pillar in elevating health.