Conservation Medicine: Doctors as Environmental Advocates
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is known as a zoonotic virus: a virus that can transmit between animals and humans. The majority of major outbreaks of disease come from animal-to-human transmission, with the CDC estimating that about six in every ten infectious diseases originate zoonotically. Major outbreaks such as Ebola, West Nile Virus, and even a recent outbreak of Monkeypox trace their roots to zoonotic origins.
Infographics by Zhiru Wang
Meanwhile, emerging findings have indicated that climate change has the potential to increase the occurrence and transmission of zoonotic disease, threatening new and more resilient viruses and outbreaks, with longer duration and greater frequency than the one that we have lived through for nearly three years. Zoonotic disease and the climate are inextricably linked, which is why conservation efforts are important to not only the longevity of the planet, but to limit the development and spread of new, deadlier viruses.
The major focus on COVID-19 and its origins has brought renewed attention to a once minor field of medicine. Conservation medicine is an interdisciplinary approach to human health that incorporates environmentalism, veterinary science, ecology, geology, and other sciences to understand the relationship between these fields and how they contribute to human health. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, it has also gone by the names of ecological medicine, medical geology, and conservation health, which further illuminates the complexity and scope of the issues it attempts to address.
Today’s doctors are extremely specialized, and with good reason. As the field of medicine has expanded and the contributing factors to human health have been further understood, entrants to medicine have necessarily become more focused on highly specific health issues. It is, however, simultaneously true that environmental issues like air pollution, rising rates of zoonotic disease transmission, and the physical manifestations of climate change—like rising sea levels and increased natural disaster occurrence—continue to add new challenges to the health and medical systems of the world. Conservation medicine offers an opportunity for doctors to approach their specific fields with a greater understanding of the underlying environmental health factors contributing to their patients’ health.
As medicine and public health become further intertwined with the health of the environment, professionals must find ways to incorporate climate considerations into their work to advance health, both on individual and largescale levels. Despite trends toward mistrust of media and publicly elected officials, people generally still trust their doctors. A Pew Research poll found that about three-quarters of Americans trust medical professionals, even amidst the threat of COVID-19 and active misinformation campaigns against public health measures. If medical doctors can take up conservation medicine practices, incorporating an understanding of climate-related health outcomes, environmental efforts have the potential to be more easily taken up by and communicated to a patient base. The field has the potential to greatly contribute to efforts to combat climate change.
