The 2008 Lecture in Brief

The agenda for public health research and policy engagement has expanded rapidly in recent decades. This has great implications for research training, methods, and the recruitment of a versatile public health research and policy workforce. In addition to the many familiar issues that confront population health (water-borne infections, malnutrition, physical hazards, and then, with modernization, the rise of noncommunicable diseases) the expansion of human numbers and economic activity is now changing and disrupting the natural environment, built environment, and patterns of human interaction on an unprecedented scale.

Global climate change commands particular attention as, now, a recognized and worrying example, posing a wide range of health risks, particularly to vulnerable populations in lower-income countries. These large-scale environmental changes will cast an increasingly long shadow over future population health – unless we effectively communicate these health (and concurrent non-health) risks, and enable that evidence to help society shape a sustainable way of living.