Health ecology

Health ecology focuses on a transdisciplinary approach to understanding all the factors which influence an individual's physiological, social, and emotional well-being.

Some examples include an increase in asthma rates due to air pollution, or PCB contamination of game fish in the Great Lakes of the United States.

For example, research has shown that habitat fragmentation is the main factor that contributes to increased rates of Lyme disease in human populations.

However, it fell out of common practice in the twentieth century, when technical professionalism and expertise were assumed sufficient to manage health and disease.

These revolutionary movements were built on a foundation laid by earlier scholars, including Hippocrates, Rudolf Virchow, and Louis Pasteur.

The IDRC now defines six principles instead of three pillars: transdisciplinary, participation, gender and social equity, system-thinking, sustainability, and research-to-action (Charron, 2011).

The solution involved creative thinking on the part of many individuals and produced a win-win situation for researchers, businesses, and, most importantly, the community.

In addition, urban design and planning determine automobile use, available food choices, air pollution levels, and the safety and walkability of the neighborhoods in which people live.