NWA Building blocks for integrated policy on Planetary Health

Global environmental changes pose a threat to human health. Conversely, human healthcare is changing the global environment, through the release of greenhouse gases, for example. Planetary health is a research concept that explores the connection between the health of the planet, nature and people. This connection is highly complex, and important to consider in existing and new policies. Dutch government policy measures currently do not take sufficient account of their impact on planetary health. An integrated approach is needed that allows policies to be assessed for their combined impact on the planet, nature and people.

This NWA programme is aimed at developing an approach that can be used to ensure that Dutch government policy more comprehensively considers the intended and unintended impact of that policy on the planet, nature and people. The focus is on developing a widely applicable approach for Planetary Health Impact Assessment (PHIA). It is anticipated that this approach will build upon existing frameworks for Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). These are previously developed methods to assess the impact of policy measures on human health and the environment.

Due to the importance of the connection between research, policy and practice, the programme requires collaboration between researchers from different disciplines (interdisciplinarity) and the entire knowledge chain (fundamental, applied, process-based and practice-oriented research). A transdisciplinary approach is also assured through collaboration, co-design and co-creation with societal parties.

The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) is implementing this thematic programme of the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA) in collaboration with NWO. Initiators of this programme are the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.