医学地理和环境健康研究的主要领域与进展

Progress of Medical Geography and Environmental Health Studies

通过对近年国内外医学地理和环境健康相关领域的文献检索分析发现,人口健康是当前国际地理学和环境科学研究的核心内容之一,其研究趋势可以归纳为以下几个方面:①重视全球环境变化对人类健康的影响。包括全球大气组成改变(气候变化和臭氧层耗散)对健康的影响、土地利用/土地覆被变化与健康、全球环境变化与传染病、食物生产系统改变与健康和城市化与健康等;②环境健康风险评估领域进一步拓展,除重金属、持久性有机污染物等有毒有害污染物的健康风险外,有关生态、灾害和场地环境污染对健康影响的综合风险评估日益受到重视;③重视社会人文因素与自然因素交互作用对健康的影响,特别是经济发展和城市化过程中收入、产品和服务分配不均造成的卫生不公平对健康的影响;④重视人口老龄化过程的时空差异及其对社会的影响和老龄人口的健康、医疗与养老需求及其可达性研究;⑤地理信息系统和模型等技术被广泛用于疾病和健康的空间数据管理、空间分布规律和空间影响因素分析等领域,并为疾病监测、卫生管理和卫生规划提供了强有力的技术支撑。随着国内在相关领域需求和国际交流的增加,我国近年的相关研究有了较大的发展并得到国际社会的认可,医学地理作为一门学科,在我国人口健康研究中正发挥越来越重要的作用。

Human health is one of the key issues either in geographical or environmental science studies in last years. The interested topics can be cataloged as follows： （1） Health issues from global environment change （GEC）, including health threats of atmospheric composition change and land use/land cover changes, infectious diseases, food-producing system and health, and health impacts from urbanization. （2） Environmental health risk assessment, including health risks from environmental pollutants （either heavy metals or POPs in air, soil or water）, ecological degeneration and natural/human induced hazards. （3） Social determinants of human health, especially health equity. （4） Aging issues, including the health/care demands of old population and their impacts on health/care system. （5） Medical geographical information system, including disease monitoring, modeling and health management. With the fast development of medical geography in China, Chinese scientists have not only engaged in international programme/project planning, but also taken some top position in international organization. The progress of medical geography research in China can be summarized as the following aspects： （1） Geography of endemic diseases is still the study emphasis; （2） The theory of environmental health risk assessment has been generally accepted and the health risk assessing technique of environmental pollution is gradually standardized; （3） The health impacts of global environmental changes on China＇s population have begun to attract more attention; （4） With rapid urbanization, environmental health problems in urban and rural areas receive universal recognition; （5） RS, GIS and models are adopted in the study of medical geography. Additionally, ageing and longevity issues, as well as the human dimensions on health, and public health risks assessment of disasters, will be the new research focus of medical geography in China.