Public Health Practitioners for One Planet (PHPOP) is a leadership and learning framework that equips public health professionals with the knowledge, mindsets, and cross-sector skills needed to advance health equity, climate resilience, and planetary regeneration in an era of ecological overshoot and systemic injustice. 

Inspired by the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) framework, PHPOP reimagines the role of public health—not only as a discipline of prevention and care—but as a catalyst for deep systems change and community-led transformation in a warming, unequal world.

Why Public Health Practice Must Evolve

Today’s public health practitioners confront crises that are complex, interconnected, and accelerating:

• • Climate-fueled disasters and disease patterns

  • Biodiversity loss and air, water, and soil degradation

  • Health disparities shaped by structural inequity, colonial legacies, and economic precarity

  • Mental health challenges tied to ecological grief and displacement

  • The breakdown of trust in institutions, data, and science

Yet most traditional training still emphasizes technical mastery without preparing practitioners to lead amidst uncertainty, build collective agency, or shift entrenched systems.

PHPOP Proposes a New Compass for Practice—One That Is:

• • Ecologically Literate and Climate-Responsive
    Grounded in planetary health and environmental determinants of well-being

  • Justice-Centered and Inclusive
    Focused on dismantling structural inequities and honoring community knowledge

  • Systems-Oriented and Interdisciplinary
    Navigating across sectors, timelines, and feedback loops to design lasting change

  • Regenerative, Not Just Resilient
    Working to heal people, communities, and ecosystems—not merely adapt or cope

Who Is This For?

• • Local and national public health officials

  • Health system and community health leaders

  • Environmental and climate health advocates

  • Educators, planners, and cross-sector collaborators

  • Students of public health committed to equity and ecological integrity

Public Health for One Planet (PHOP) Framework

Integrating Sustainability into Core Public Health Courses

1. Systems Thinking

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Environmental health and health policy courses can incorporate systems mapping, indigenous knowledge, causal loop diagrams, and intersectoral analysis to show how public health challenges intersect with climate, food, housing, and energy systems.

• Advanced Outcome: Use systems thinking tools to design interventions addressing complex, multisectoral climate-related health challenges.
  
  

2. Environmental and Carbon Literacy

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Environmental health, epidemiology, and global health courses can include deeper coverage of biodiversity, planetary boundaries, and ecosystem services as determinants of health.

• Advanced Outcome: Apply environmental data and policy frameworks to guide public health decisions and climate policy.
  
  

3. Responsible Business, Healthcare Industry, and Economy

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Health policy, global health, and health systems management courses can explore economic models (e.g., circular economy, social enterprise) and their implications for sustainability and health equity.

• Advanced Outcome: Analyze and advocate for economic models that promote health, low-carbon, and circularity.
  
  

4. Social Responsibility

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Behavioral science, health disparities, and community health courses can emphasize environmental justice, cultural humility, and the legacies of colonization and industrial harm.

• Advanced Outcome: Co-design interventions with historically marginalized communities and harnessing indigenous knowledge in anticipation of increased climate change.
  
  

5. Environmental Impact Assessment

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Environmental health and health impact assessment courses can be updated to include tools like climate vulnerability assessments, life-cycle analysis, and cumulative exposure frameworks.

• Advanced Outcome: Apply findings to shape policies that mitigate harm and protect health in global warming scenarios. Integrate  indigenous environmental practices into analyses.
  
  

6. Health Products and Materials Selection

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Environmental health and health systems courses can address the health impacts of materials across the supply chain — including medical waste, pharmaceuticals, and construction materials.

• Advanced Outcome: Select or recommend materials that are regenerative, low-carbon, low-toxicity, and low-impact.
  
  

7. Health Solutions Design

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Courses in program planning, community health, and urban health can teach design thinking, regenerative design, and participatory design methods for resilient, inclusive health interventions.

• Advanced Outcome: Apply human-centered, culturally sensitive design strategies that promote long-term planetary and community health and bio-regional regeneration.

8. Climate Action Agency, Mental Health, and Spirituality/Interiority

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Behavioral health, global health, and disaster response courses can address climate anxiety, trauma, and eco-emotions, while fostering community action and psychological resilience.

• Advanced Outcome: Build programs that integrate climate action, hope, and mental health support to foster adaptive agency.
  
  

9. Critical Thinking

• Extension of Traditional Courses: All core courses can deepen analysis by encouraging students to challenge assumptions, explore future scenarios, and weigh ecological and ethical trade-offs. Students explore epistemic limitations of western science and explore indigenous knowledge systems as complementary lenses.

• Advanced Outcome: Apply foresight and systems innovation to reframe and solve emerging climate health challenges.
  
  

10. Health Leadership, Governance, and Communication

• Extension of Traditional Courses: Health promotion, health communication, and interprofessional education courses can train students to collaborate across sectors and disciplines using inclusive, narrative-driven, and community-led approaches.

• Advanced Outcome: Lead interdisciplinary teams to co-create sustainable climate health solutions and policies.

PHPOP Tracks Mapped with Common MPH Courses

1. Systems Thinking

Courses: Foundations for Public Health, Core Principles of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Health Systems

Add causal loop diagrams, system maps, and transdisciplinary modeling assignments to core and health systems courses. Use system dynamics to explore interventions.

2. Environmental Literacy

Courses: Social, Behavioral, and Structural Determinants of Health, Environmental Health courses (e.g., Toxicology, Exposure Assessment)

Strengthen links between ecology and health in environmental health and core determinants courses. Embed planetary boundaries and environmental justice in learning outcomes.

3. Responsible Business and Economy

Courses: Economics for Health and Development, Economic Analysis, Foundations for Public Health

Incorporate sustainability accounting, just transition concepts, and circular economy strategies into economic and management case studies.

4. Social Responsibility

Courses: Social, Behavioral, and Structural Determinants of Health, Society and Health, Public Health Policy and Politics

Infuse environmental justice, intergenerational equity, and decolonization frameworks into case discussions and intervention design.

5. Environmental Impact Assessment

Courses: Environmental Exposure Assessment, Environmental and Occupational Health Regulations

Introduce EIA, HIA, and life cycle assessment tools directly into environmental health assignments. Link policy and practice through real-world policy co-design projects with government offices. 

6. Materials Selection

Courses: Toxicology, Health Management electives, Environmental electives

Extend discussion of material toxicity and supply chain impacts into clinical, procurement, and environmental safety contexts. Design circularity into health products.

7. Health Solutions Design

Courses: Program Planning, Design Thinking in Health Care

Apply human-centered and regenerative design principles to program/project planning, urban health, or clinical innovation labs.

8. Climate Action Agency, Mental Health, and Spirituality/Interiority

Courses: Health Behavior Change, Reducing Socioeconomic and Racial/Ethnic Inequalities in Health, Elective Practica

Embed climate anxiety, hope theory, and resilience-building strategies in behavioral health and fieldwork. Encourage reflective journaling and climate action planning.

9. Critical Thinking

Courses: Foundations for Public Health, Principles of Social and Behavioral Research, Leadership and Communication

Use future scenarios, systems foresight, and ethical trade-offs in assignments and integrative learning experiences.

10. Health Leadership, Governance, and Communication

Courses: Leadership and Communication, Applied Practice and Integrative Learning Experience

Emphasize cross-sector collaboration and visual storytelling. Evaluate team leadership and policy pitching in final deliverables.