“The PHE [population, health, and environment] approach addresses the relationship between human health and environmental health, to improve primary healthcare services, conserve biodiversity and natural resources, and develop sustainable livelihoods,” said Sarah Harlan, the Learning and Partnerships Director at K4Health, introducing a recent webinar featuring three PHE leaders from Madagascar, East Africa, and the Philippines.

By combining interventions that address population dynamics and environmental degradation, PHE programs are able to address multiple issues through a single project—more efficiently and effectively. In the fishing community of Bohol in the Philippines, for example, population has increased eightfold since 1950 while the average catch decreased by 20 percent. A PHE approach focused on food security educated community members about family planning while simultaneously promoting environmental awareness and efforts to increase the size of protected marine areas. According to Joan Castro, Executive Vice President of Path Foundation Philippines, “studies reveal that integrated approaches of population and coastal conservation yield higher impact on both human and ecosystem health outcomes, and at a lower cost.”

By addressing their most urgent needs—health, livelihoods, food—PHE programs help communities help themselves and their families. An initiative in Madagascar increases food security and protects the marine environment by training fisherfolk to farm seaweed and sea cucumbers in places where fishing is no longer sustainable. One trainee reported his life has “completely changed” due to revenues from seaweed farming, said Nantenaina Andriamalala, the National Coordinator of the Madagascar PHE Network, which brings together more than 40 health and environment organizations.

The HOPE-LVB project in Africa’s Lake Victoria Basin helps communities adapt to the region’s rapidly changing conditions by providing basic reproductive health services and training wardens and communities on forest and wildlife conservation. One ranger who participated in the training told the organizers, “I am now viewed not as an enemy with the gun but as a wildlife officer who brings hope to their life,” said Doreen Othero, Regional Program Coordinator of the PHE program in the Lake Victoria Basin.

The PHE approach also promotes gender equality. “We’ve seen increased participation of women in natural resource management, and of men in reproductive health and family planning; couples are now empowered and making their own reproductive health choices,” said Othero.

Read More:

• PHE programs can “contribute to resilience at the individual, family, and community level,” writes Laurie Mazur.
• “Nowhere is the connection between population dynamics and biodiversity more evident than in the Philippines,” writes Janet Edmond about PHE projects in Bohol.
• The HOPE-LVB project is working to simultaneously improve natural resource management and sexual and reproductive health outcomes around the Lake Victoria Basin, where more than 80 percent of the residents depend on fishing and farming for survival.