Global and Environmental Health

Global and environmental health refers to all the factors that may influence the health of individuals and populations by transcending national borders, and particularly the impact that global environmental factors may have on health. This research area therefore focuses on problems of individual and public health on a global scale, the majority of which are declared as major 21st century public health emergencies by the WHO.

Global and environmental health research thus aims to address the new challenges facing our health system, in particular in the healthcare sector; such challenges may result from illnesses and determinants of health, and be generated or intensified by climate change, the collapse of biodiversity, and water, air and soil pollution. These challenges and their consequences must be taken into account to shape the future of healthcare, prevention and the health system, including the related research.

At Unisanté, the activities in this field comprise mainly research projects intended to reduce morbidity and mortality among patients living in resource-limited countries or returning to Europe from the tropics, by improving the quality of primary care. Among other things, these interventions include clinical decision support tools, as well as point-of-care diagnostic tests. These projects aim to improve care workers’ clinical expertise, reduce the prescription of medicines (in particular, antibiotics), identify patients requiring hospital referrals, and enable the early detection of epidemics. The impact of these interventions on the systemic challenges, such as antibiotic resistance, pandemics, environmental damage, global warming and cybersecurity - but also their vulnerability facing these challenges - are assessed.

Unisanté’s research activities in this field also focus on the health effects of exposure to pesticides and to certain chemical pollutants present in the environment (for example, endocrine disruptors or dioxin). Their relationship with certain environmental factors, such as the effect of UV rays on the cutaneous absorption of chemical substances, is also studied. Exposure to tobacco, new tobacco products and cannabis derivatives is also a research topic.