We are all aware that globally we are experiencing severe environmental degradations. We can intuitively relate to well-known environmental problems, such as traffic and industrial pollution, but we might feel more distant as how climate change or the urban environment might affect our health and how disproportionate these effects can be. From this perspective, the two guiding questions of this chapter are (1) whether the environment can affect cardiovascular health and (2) whether some particular groups, at local or global level, can be more affected. In trying to answer these questions, we focus in three interconnected environmental problems: air pollution, climate change, and urban environment. Throughout the chapter, we present these environmental stressors, their drivers, mechanisms, and dynamics, while recognizing the presence of synergistic loops between them. These stressors are closely related to the effects on cardiovascular health, and we show the pathways that link them, as well as the unequal distribution of both exposures to environmental factors and cardiovascular diseases. We conclude with recommendations to confront environmental threats, from the individual level to a more collective level considering the full picture of the problem, including the environment, health, and equity at the local, regional, and global levels.

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Environment, Cardiovascular Health, and Local and Global Inequities

  • Pablo Ruiz-Rudolph,
  • Karla Yohannessen

摘要

We are all aware that globally we are experiencing severe environmental degradations. We can intuitively relate to well-known environmental problems, such as traffic and industrial pollution, but we might feel more distant as how climate change or the urban environment might affect our health and how disproportionate these effects can be. From this perspective, the two guiding questions of this chapter are (1) whether the environment can affect cardiovascular health and (2) whether some particular groups, at local or global level, can be more affected. In trying to answer these questions, we focus in three interconnected environmental problems: air pollution, climate change, and urban environment. Throughout the chapter, we present these environmental stressors, their drivers, mechanisms, and dynamics, while recognizing the presence of synergistic loops between them. These stressors are closely related to the effects on cardiovascular health, and we show the pathways that link them, as well as the unequal distribution of both exposures to environmental factors and cardiovascular diseases. We conclude with recommendations to confront environmental threats, from the individual level to a more collective level considering the full picture of the problem, including the environment, health, and equity at the local, regional, and global levels.