What is Ecological Health?

At the core of our work is understanding what health means - what does it mean to be healthy? In the news we are hearing time and time again that “healthy” people are dying. In some cases this might be true, however, some by Centric’s definition of health wouldn’t qualify as healthy. This is not to do with the individual, but the system in which a person lives. Health is a system, not a singular event or the absence of chronic illnesses. Furthermore and importantly, health is ecological, meaning that it is linked to the places we live - read more in Health is Ecological.

Health is the ability for our biological systems to enter stability after experiencing trauma or stress throughout our entire lifetime, to give us all an equal opportunity to realise our full potential.

What this means is that people should have systemic support to bring their bodies back to equilibrium after experiencing stress. By systemic we mean adequate housing, access to health resources, access to nutritious food, affordances to build strong community ties, clean air, access to restorative spaces like parks, etc. 

In doing so a person is able to have the mental and physical attributes to realise a fulfilling and purposeful life. However, in the urban environment of the 21st century, many people are not provided with the affordances to lead a life of health. Often this means living with a chronic disorder from an early age, which can create severe challenges that make life unnecessarily harsh.

Stress is an important and fundamental adaptive response to external (psychological/physiological) and internal stimuli (bodily changes, including illness). In terms of external stimuli physiological can be adapting to air pollution and psychology could be experiencing the loss of a loved one.

When stress surmounts; perhaps a person lives in a neighbourhood that has noise and air pollution, has a long work commute, and has experienced loss in their personal life, it becomes chronic stress. Chronic stress, through complex physiological changes can lead to a dysregulation of many biological systems including metabolic and immune. If a person cannot find restorativeness in their environment (social life, work, physical spaces, nutrition) that can lead to longer term physical degradation as the body is in a constant state of stress. This phenomena can shed insight as to the reason behind high levels of disease (mental/physical) in populations living in poverty and in depleted environments. 

Therefore health is not just the absence of chronic diseases. A person may not have reached that stage, but could be experiencing chronic stress that could already be changing their body. 

As a result, when presented with a health shock like COVID-19 many of these seemingly “healthy” people may not have a robust biological system to fight the virus. 

However, we would like to highlight that our perception and definition of health needs to expand. We must look at health in a systemic and ecological manner. In other words in the context of a person’s entire life; where they live, what is their knowledge of nutrition, their work/life balance, economic status, level of personal stressors, and affordance (time x place) to engage in restorative activities  such as exercise or meditation. 

An expansive understanding of health will allow us to protect populations as we face future crises.  Healthcare shouldn’t be confined to the moment a person needs emergency care or long term care due to a chronic disease. Healthcare should happen outside the critical medical field.

Healthcare as a system creates preventative solutions starting with making our cities healthier so we bring down the risk of disease. 

Maintaining the health of people will be increasingly relevant as climate change continues to evolve. We need people to have the highest chance of survival.