lesson 13 Flashcards
The Anthropocene
The current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has
been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
anthropocene driven by
Driven by:
- Industrialization
- Urbanization
- Globalization
- Technological and economic systems
Climate change and ecological degradation drive
- Zoonotic disease spillover
- Food insecurity
- Double burden of malnutrition (undernutrition + obesity)
what happens in pandemics
Highlight inequalities in vulnerability and access to health interventions.
COVID-19 showed that disease impact is socially and economically mediated.
Cultural Change and Health Risks
- Cultural solutions (e.g., agriculture, antibiotics, urban development) often produce new problems.
- Many diseases of the Anthropocene result from:
Overconsumption
Sedentary behavior
Processed diets
Pollution and environmental stressors
Evolutionary Discordance in the Anthropocene
- Health outcomes reflect mismatch between evolved biology and rapidly changing environments.
- Anthropocene factors mirror and amplify mismatch conditions:
Increased disease exposure
Resource inequity
Commercial determinants of health
why do we get sick: evolutionary framework
- Five key causes (Nesse):
- Genetic vulnerabilities from past selection (e.g., sickle cell).
- Novel exposures (e.g., carcinogens, processed foods).
- Co-evolutionary arms races (e.g., COVID-19).
- Historical legacies (e.g., spine design and back pain).
- Design compromises (e.g., big brains and birth risks).
- Health outcomes are shaped by genetics, culture, and environment—and often worsened by inequalities in access, exposure, and cultural systems.
2 crises of the anthropocene
climate change and pandemic
Social and Environmental Determinants of Health
Health in Anthropocene is affected by:
- Social inequities (wealth, race, gender)
- Global systems (corporate power, geopolitics)
- Economic access to nutrition and healthcare
Double burden of malnutrition: Undernutrition & obesity co-existing due to poor food systems.
Political & commercial interests drive nutritional health disparities globall
Cultural Buffering & Stress
- Culture both creates and mitigates stress.
- Stress = environmental/physical pressure.
- Cultural “buffering” can reduce exposure to harmful environmental factors.
- Clinical application: Understanding root (ultimate) causes helps improve health outcomes
Mismatch or Discordance
between our biology, a
product of evolutionary process, and our
environment, which often changes quickly and is
influenced by culture = negative health outcomes
5 reasons we get sick
- there are genes that make us vulnerable to disease,
either selected in the past or currently beneficial for
other reasons - disease results from exposure to novel factors that were
not present in the environment in which we evolved
Ex. Carcinogens and cancers, high GI foods and diabetes - co-evolutionary arm’s races – our physiology is ‘naïve’ to novel
threats, and can’t keep pace with their rapid evolution - disease results from
unfortunate historical legacies
– back pain, vertebral size, and
the ‘ancestral shape
hypothesis’ - disease results from ‘design
compromises’, such as
concussion as a consequence
of large brains.
The cultural and ecological contexts of
disease are crucial to the mitigation of
risk factors
- Stress – any environmental or
physical pressure that elicits a
response from an organism - Buffering – to lessen or moderate
the impact of something
