The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants: Uncovering the need for a holistic approach to environmental and human health

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants was adopted in 2001 and took effect in 2004. The purpose of the Convention is to ban, severely restrict, or phase out twelve harmful persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is one of the toxins addressed by the Convention however, a provision is written into the Convention allowing for the continued use of DDT for public health purposes, namely malaria control. Climate change models project a change in the spatial distribution of malaria vectors and parasites due to rising temperatures and humidity and changing precipitation patterns. Increased temperatures will allow malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the parasite itself to survive in places where the climate was once too cool. Thus, the need for DDT is not likely to decrease in the future, and the need may in fact increase. DDT has known and studied potential negative environmental and human health effects, and is considered to be a local-level, short-term solution to a regional and global-level, long-term problem. This project explains the need to center public health policy around a more holistic view of the environment to avoid the creation of new health problems through the solution to others. This research examines the authors, evolution, and general characterization of three approaches to health including the traditional approach, ecosystem approach, and ecohealth approach. Criteria for the ecosystem approach to health are developed by the author and used to evaluate whether or not the DDT provision of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is in accordance with this holistic approach to health.