Welcome to Detroit, USA - 2019!Welcome to our 8th annual meeting in Detroit on May 15-17th 2019. The theme of the meeting, “From Challenges, to Opportunities”, underscores the imperative to address the complex ecological challenges of advancing global urbanization – for personal, environmental, economic and societal health alike. Our agenda continues to address strategies to overcome global ‘dysbiotic drift’ – life in distress - on every level.
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Detroit – a city rising from social and economic devastation – provides the perfect backdrop for these discussions, using case studies from inspirational local efforts to restore hope, purpose, and reduce health and social disparities through community youth activities, free innercity food farms, and sensory gardens for children to play.
This continues to reflect our focus on understanding and improving the complex relationships between human health and planetary health. We seek to emphasize the eco-biological interactions in our living environments (including urbanization, food systems, education, social inequity, climate change, biodiversity loss, and microbial ecology) on physical, mental and spiritual well-being, together with the wider community and societal factors that govern these.
This continues to reflect our focus on understanding and improving the complex relationships between human health and planetary health. We seek to emphasize the eco-biological interactions in our living environments (including urbanization, food systems, education, social inequity, climate change, biodiversity loss, and microbial ecology) on physical, mental and spiritual well-being, together with the wider community and societal factors that govern these.
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In particular, we aim to define and modify impact of rapid global environmental change, urbanization, and biodiversity losses on immune health – which is fundamental to all aspects of physical and emotional health and the risk of allergy and immune disease, obesity and metabolic disease and neurocognitive disorders. We continue to do this with a strong developmental ‘life-course’ approach that recognizes the critical need for long range vision and disease prevention.
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We are very proud of our tremendous network of like-minded people from diverse fields and many regions who collaborate to address these modern health challenges and, importantly, how they link to wider global challenges. Our interests span from planetary/population/ environmental health to microbial ecology/ systems biology and the deep biological mechanisms - basically working ‘symbiotically’ to connecting the siloes through an integrated systems framework
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Our meetings are highly productive and interactive with as much emphasis on meaningful collaborations and productive friendships as on the data and opportunities we generate. It is our privilege and pleasure to welcome you to Detroit!
Prof Susan Prescott (Network Director) Prof Ganesa Wegienka (Local Organiser) Prof Dianne Campbell (Network CoDirector) |
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Detroit: a city of challenges and opportunities
Detroit provides the perfect setting for our discussions. The city’s motto is “Speramus meliora; resurgent cineribus,” which means “We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes.” This was coined in 1805 after the city was destroyed by a catastrophic fire, and is just as relevant to the challenges Detroit is recovering from today.
After the Global Financial Crisis, industry deserted Detroit with catastrophic economic downturn leading to a $18.5 billion debt, and staggering 50% unemployment in some neighborhoods. But after filing for bankruptcy in 2013, the city has been rising from the ashes and reinventing itself – thanks to innovation, collaboration and ecological solutions including large scale urban farming and AgriHoods! For more, see Detroit initiatives.
After the Global Financial Crisis, industry deserted Detroit with catastrophic economic downturn leading to a $18.5 billion debt, and staggering 50% unemployment in some neighborhoods. But after filing for bankruptcy in 2013, the city has been rising from the ashes and reinventing itself – thanks to innovation, collaboration and ecological solutions including large scale urban farming and AgriHoods! For more, see Detroit initiatives.
From food desert to collaborative consumption
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Challenges unique to urban communities like Detroit (e.g., vacant land, food security) present a unique opportunity for initiatives such as community-supported agriculture to empower urban communities. Volunteer organisations such as the Detroit Food Policy Council and the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative are using urban agriculture as a platform to promote education, sustainability, and community in an effort to empower urban communities, solve many social problems facing Detroit, and potentially develop a broader model for redevelopment for other urban communities - simultaneously reducing socioeconomic disparity.
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New Journal Partnership
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Our expanding horizons
In 2019 we will continue to pursue our expanding vision which recognizes the vital importance of approaching complex environmental issues from a more holistic and integrated perspective. This extends and combines the typical focus on the biological and psychological level, with the wider sociological and environmental determinants of human health, and understanding how these are inter-related to societal health.
One important dimension of our meeting in Detroit will be the opportunity to discuss these the relationships between urbanisation, climate change, mental health, and ecological grief, using case studies from inner city and disadvantaged communities. This extends our interest in how human health challenges are the culmination of a ’dual burden’ - increasing adverse exposure (e.g. fast food, toxins and stress) coupled with loss of much that was protective in ancestral environments. The facets of ‘loss’ extend from the physical (loss of biodiversity, species, local foods and produce) to the loss of community (loss of language, tradition, and stories) and the far less tangible aspects of loss (such as loss of value systems, loss of purpose, peace, respect, spirituality, compassion, awe and wonder). Detroit provides an ideal backdrop to explore impact of disconnection from natural environments and loss of appreciation for traditional cultures - which extends from effect on individual mental and physical health to unsustainable social, economic and environmental consequences.
One important dimension of our meeting in Detroit will be the opportunity to discuss these the relationships between urbanisation, climate change, mental health, and ecological grief, using case studies from inner city and disadvantaged communities. This extends our interest in how human health challenges are the culmination of a ’dual burden’ - increasing adverse exposure (e.g. fast food, toxins and stress) coupled with loss of much that was protective in ancestral environments. The facets of ‘loss’ extend from the physical (loss of biodiversity, species, local foods and produce) to the loss of community (loss of language, tradition, and stories) and the far less tangible aspects of loss (such as loss of value systems, loss of purpose, peace, respect, spirituality, compassion, awe and wonder). Detroit provides an ideal backdrop to explore impact of disconnection from natural environments and loss of appreciation for traditional cultures - which extends from effect on individual mental and physical health to unsustainable social, economic and environmental consequences.
Venue: The Detroit Yacht Club
The main venue for our conference sessions will take place at the historic Detroit Yacht Club (DYC)
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