国外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究与启示

在工业化、城镇化、信息化持续发展,全球变化和全球事件轮番冲击的背景下,公共卫生研究不断深化,已发展为全球性的跨学科议程及研究热点。回顾相关文献发现,国内外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究在数量上均经历了缓慢上升、加速上升和当前的快速上升阶段,但切入角度和关注议题存在差异。本文通过梳理国外地理学对公共卫生问题的研究,对这一领域概念、理论、方法的发展及热点进行归纳总结和综合评述,探讨健康老龄化、健康不平等、融合健康考量的城市规划等议题下现有研究的主要争议、前景及其对国内研究的启示,尤其指出气候变化和传染病大流行等外部压力下暴露出的地理学研究契机,以期拓展视野、聚焦问题,为国内地理学者参与公共卫生研究提供参考。

Progress and prospects of geography in public health:A review of literature abroad

World Health Organization defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. Therefore, public health, the art and science of promoting health, is an interdisciplinary field which benefits from communication of different research perspectives. Of these perspectives, geography has a unique advantage in that space and health are intrinsically linked. The geographical context of places and the connectedness between places together play a major role in shaping public health. These features allow geography to theorize the associations between different variables and health from a unique angle of view and tackle public health challenges around the world. Many core geographical research themes in recent years, including inequalities, urbanization, and globalization, are directly related to public health. However, with the definition of health and public management constantly evolving, public health and geography research starting stressing emphasis on socio-economic factors, and crises like climate change and COVID-19 pandemic bringing external pressure, the geographical dimension of public health research has become much more complex and experienced many changes in connotation, theory, content and methodology. This paper starts with a brief review which shows relevant literatures at home and abroad have both experienced a slow rise, an accelerated rise, and the current rapid rise, but are divided in perspectives and topics concerned. It is worth noting that numbers of both reached a maximum in 2020. Then the paper is organized in a set of theories, methods and topics which have dominated much of the recent literature abroad: neighborhood effect, therapeutic landscapes, post-humanist thoughts, evolving quantitative and qualitative methods, healthy aging, health inequalities, and urban planning measures aimed at promoting residents’ health. In particular, it points out current opportunities in which global crises such as climate change and COVID-19 pandemic opened up for geographical research. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine recent research in the geographical dimension of public health research abroad; second, to introduce relevant theories, methods, and topics which might prove valuable to support future quests and build in-depth research on domestic public health problems.