Health and wellbeing

Health and well-being have a central role in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the United Nations, emphasizing the integral part they play in building a sustainable future. The third SDG explicitly calls for ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages. This goal encompasses a wide range of health objectives, from reducing maternal and child mortality rates, combatting disease epidemics, to improving mental health and well-being. But beyond SDG 3, health is intrinsically linked with almost all the other goals.

When addressing SDG 1, which aims to end poverty, one cannot neglect the social determinants of health. Economic hardship often translates into poor nutrition, inadequate housing, and limited access to health care, leading to a vicious cycle of poverty and poor health. Similarly, achieving SDG 2, ending hunger, also contributes to better health through adequate nutrition, essential for physical and mental development and the prevention of various diseases.

Conversely, the repercussions of climate change, encapsulated in SDG 13, profoundly impact health. Rising global temperatures can lead to increased spread of infectious diseases, compromised food and water supplies, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, all posing severe health risks. Conversely, the promotion of good health can also mitigate climate change through the reduction of carbon-intensive lifestyles and adoption of healthier, more sustainable behaviors.

SDG 5, advocating for gender equality, also has substantial health implications. Ensuring women's access to sexual and reproductive health services not only improves their health outcomes, but also contributes to societal and economic development. Furthermore, achieving SDG 4, quality education, is also critical for health promotion. Education fosters health literacy, empowering individuals to make informed health decisions, hence improving overall community health.

Lastly, SDG 17 underlines the importance of partnerships for achieving these goals. Multi-sector collaboration is vital to integrate health considerations into all policies and practices. Stakeholders from various sectors, including health, education, agriculture, finance, and urban planning, need to align their efforts in creating sustainable environments that foster health and well-being.

Hence, the relationship between health, well-being, and the SDGs is reciprocal. Improving health and well-being helps in achieving sustainable development, and vice versa. In this context, health and well-being are not just outcomes but are also powerful enablers of sustainable development. For the world to truly thrive, it must recognize and act upon these interconnections.

Elsevier,

The Psychology of Criminal and Antisocial Behavior: Victim and Offender Perspectives, 2017, Pages 343-359

Contributing to SDGs 3 and 5, this chapter discusses the importance that those dealing with domestic violence are well trained to recognise the warning signs, behaviors, and circumstances that are associated with domestic violence and its various incarnations, as well as the psychological, social, and physical consequences of this form of victimization.
Elsevier,

Handbook of Cannabis and Related Pathologies, Biology, Pharmacology, Diagnosis, and Treatment,  2017, Pages 131-137

This chapter advances SDG 5, Gender Equality, by exploring the gender differences among individuals with cannabis use disorder.
Elsevier,

Explaining Suicide: Patterns, Motivations, and What Notes Reveal, 2017, Pages 51-71

Contributing to SDGs 3 and 5, this chapter examines interpersonal relationships as a motivation for suicide.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and questioning youth represent a diverse population who are affected by many sexual health inequities, including increased risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). To provide comprehensive sexual health care for LGBT youth, providers should set the stage with a nonjudgmental, respectful tone. Providers should be competent in recognizing symptoms of STIs and HIV and aware of the most up-to-date screening guidelines for LGBT youth.
Elsevier,

Zakim and Boyer's Hepatology (Seventh Edition), A Textbook of Liver Disease, 2018, Pages 77-83.e5

This chapter aligns with the SDG goal 3 of good health and wellbeing by showing the liver's response to injury including inflammation and fibrosis responses.
Access to water in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to be a challenge to the extent that there are more people without access to water in 2015 than in 1990. This indicates that current approaches to water provision have been ineffective. Governments have failed to provide a structure, mechanisms or approaches that guarantee water for ALL, resulting in a vacuum which has been ‘filled’ by a number of social actors (NGOs, Faith Based Organisations, Donors).
The complexes of the mitochondrial respiratory chain.
Mitochondrial respiratory chain dysfunction causes a variety of life-threatening diseases affecting about 1 in 4300 adults. These diseases are genetically heterogeneous, but have the same outcome; reduced activity of mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes causing decreased ATP production and potentially toxic accumulation of metabolites. Severity and tissue specificity of these effects varies between patients by unknown mechanisms and treatment options are limited. So far most research has focused on the complexes themselves, and the impact on overall cellular metabolism is largely unclear. To illustrate how computer modelling can be used to better understand the potential impact of these disorders and inspire new research directions and treatments, we simulated them using a computer model of human cardiomyocyte mitochondrial metabolism containing over 300 characterised reactions and transport steps with experimental parameters taken from the literature. Overall, simulations were consistent with patient symptoms, supporting their biological and medical significance. These simulations predicted: complex I deficiencies could be compensated using multiple pathways; complex II deficiencies had less metabolic flexibility due to impacting both the TCA cycle and the respiratory chain; and complex III and IV deficiencies caused greatest decreases in ATP production with metabolic consequences that parallel hypoxia. Our study demonstrates how results from computer models can be compared to a clinical phenotype and used as a tool for hypothesis generation for subsequent experimental testing. These simulations can enhance understanding of dysfunctional mitochondrial metabolism and suggest new avenues for research into treatment of mitochondrial disease and other areas of mitochondrial dysfunction.
Global health threats such as the recent Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks require rapid and robust responses to prevent, reduce and recover from disease dispersion. As part of broader big data and digital humanitarianism discourses, there is an emerging interest in data produced through mobile phone communications for enhancing the data environment in such circumstances.
Elsevier,

International Encyclopedia of Public Health (Second Edition), 2017, Pages 556-562

Focuses on homelessness from a public health perspective – its prevalence, its relationship to specific health conditions, and various interventions intended to ameliorate homelessness and the health problems with which it is associated.
Elsevier,

Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, Volume 434, 15 October 2016

This article ties to SDG 3. In this review, the impact of war-related trauma on the incidence of PTSD in civilian and military populations as well as differences associated to gender in the incidence and recovery from PTSD is discussed. In addition, the mutually influencing role of inflammation, genetic, and sex hormones in modulating the consequences derived from exposure to traumatic events are discussed in light of current evidence.

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