Understanding and Addressing the Issues

Human populations interact with the environment in complex ways—through demographic and consumption patterns, livelihood choices, wealth and land distribution, institutional policies, and technology—and these interactions have impacts on both human and environmental well-being.

In areas of Ethiopia, for example, the viability of agricultural livelihoods is declining as families divide lands and households depend on smaller plots of land, resulting in some instances in food insecurity and in young people moving away in search of employment. Similarly in the Philippines, fisheries have declined as the number of fishers has increased, resulting in a need to find new sources of food and income, and often resulting in the migration of youth to urban areas that are already strained to provide basic services.

High levels of consumption and waste among the world’s richest countries like the United States are having impacts on local and distant ecosystems and altering the global climate. Demographic trends influence U.S. consumption patterns, because pollutants such as carbon are affected by population growth, aging, settlement patterns, and mobility.

Examples like this are repeated the world over where poverty, consumption, and demographics place increasing demands on the human and natural systems that people depend upon for their livelihoods, health, and well-being.

PRB's Population, Health and Environment (PHE) program aims to inform decision makers, program managers, journalists, and the public about these complex population, health, and environment interactions by:

• Increasing understanding of PHE linkages and their societal and environmental impacts.
• Building local capacity and nurturing future leaders to work on cross-cutting human-environment issues, conduct interdisciplinary research, and contribute to policy decisions.
• Developing interdisciplinary regional networks of researchers, policymakers, and professionals for information sharing and collaborative work.
• Strengthen journalists’ ability to focus policy attention on key PHE issues.

Current work is focused on four priority issues: 

• Population and Climate Change 
• Urbanization, Health, and the Built Environment 
• Biodiversity, Healthy Parks, and Healthy People 
• Coastal Resource Management, Coral Reefs, and Population Change

What We Do

Research, Analysis, and Outreach

PRB's PHE program conducts research and analysis on pressing population and environment problems. Our findings are produced in non-technical language in a variety of formats in order to reach a broad base of policymakers, project implementers, and interested individuals. We also organize conference sessions and speaking events, giving researchers and project implementers a chance to share their innovative findings with research and practice communities.

Capacity Building and Technical Assistance

PRB's PHE program provides training and technical assistance to developing country partners, international NGOs, and government agencies in a variety of capacities, including:

Improving communication of technical issues, research and program findings, and implications to policymakers and those who influence policy. 
Developing and disseminating training resources such as toolkits, case studies, and manuals. 
Building coalitions, developing collaborative PHE partnerships, and designing, monitoring, and evaluating integrated projects.

Work With the Media

PRB's PHE program works to improve the quality and quantity of media coverage of PHE interactions. We conduct seminars to increase journalists’ understanding of these technical issues and give them first-hand exposure to PHE projects in the field. We also support journalists from developing countries so that they can attend and cover newsworthy events such as international development conferences or expert meetings.

PHE program publications, articles, and materials can be found in the Environment topics page.