Global Health Institute

Syndemics as a field of study in global health has been on the rise in recent years here at Georgetown, and for good reason. On December 10, 2018, the Georgetown Environment Initiative will host a syndemics workshop titled “Rethinking syndemics: Innovating approaches in history, methodology, and current events.” In addition, there will be a new Centennial Lab in the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) on the topic in spring 2019.

In 2015, prior to the Paris Climate Conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) called climate change the "greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.” As our world becomes warmer and more populated, and as we continue to produce dirty emissions, the air we breathe is growing horrifically polluted. Nine out of ten people now breathe polluted air, killing around 7 million people every year. The health effects of air pollution are serious—one third of the deaths from stroke, lung cancer, and heart disease are due to air pollution. Yet, in 2015, even though WHO recognized the potential impacts of air pollution on human health, they had not taken any action to address it.