# Session Overview # 1. Introduction # 2. The social and environmental determinants of health # 3. Integrating activity # 4. Summary # 5. References ## 5.1 [[Essential readings]] [[@EnvironmentHealthDev2016]] Hutchinson EJ and Kovats RS (2016) Environmental Health and Sustainable Development, Chapters 2 ([[@EnvironmentHealthDev2016 1]]) and 3 (Changing pressures on health and the environment). Chapter 2 considers human driving forces, such as population and economics, in changing the effect of the environment on health. This chapter looks more closely into how the environment affects human health and provides a discussion on environmental hazards and risks and the difference between the two terms. This chapter also introduce you to the concept of environmental risk transition and precautionary principle. A list of different transitions that may co-exist (risk transition, epidemiological transition, demographic transition, urban transition and technological transition) are described in more detail in Chapter 3. [[@worldhealthorganizationGlobalHealthRisks2009]] WHO (2009) Global Health Risks. p: 1-5. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241563871 (accessed 30 September 2023) This is a report from WHO on the risk transition. The report presents an important historical context on how the risk transition affected countries in the late 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. Of particular importance is Figure 2 (p. 3) which illustrates how nations move through the risk transition from traditional risks and hazards to modern risks and hazards. Please consider that the report is over 10 years old and some of the estimates presented there are outdated. Only pages 1-5 are considered essential reading. ## 5.2 [[Recommended reading]] [[@coleAdaptingEnvironmentalRisk2021]] Cole, Helen V.S. et al. “Adapting the Environmental Risk Transition Theory for Urban Health Inequities: An Observational Study Examining Complex Environmental Riskscapes in Seven Neighborhoods in Global North Cities.” Social science & medicine (1982) 277 (2021): 113907–. Web. [[@prakosoImportancePoliticsPrecautionary2021]] PRAKOSO, S.G., LIE, W. and CAHYANI, M.P.I., 2021. The importance of politics on precautionary principles’ implementation in the environmental sector: cases and examples of Indonesia and Australia. IOP Conference Series. Earth and Environmental Science, 905(1). HSE (2013). United Kingdom Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment (UK-ILGRA). The Precautionary Principle: Policy and Application. This report outlines policy guidelines on the precautionary principle agreed by the Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment (ILGRA). Please note that the ILGRA does not meet any more and this report is now archived. However, it provides insights on how the precautionary principle was used to decision making in the UK.