April 5, 2011 - Population Matters today called for population stabilisation to be seen as a major contribution to world health. The focus of World Health Day 2011 (7th April) is combating antimicrobial resistance, whereby microorganisms develop resistance to antimicrobial treatments, rendering existing medicines ineffective.
This has a number of causes but today's rapid population growth is a significant contributory factor:
* Strains of disease resistant to medicines are spread more widely and more quickly by urban over-crowding, close proximity of humans with animals and large scale migration.
* Rapid population growth helps to keep countries poor, which hinders efforts to improve the suboptimal healthcare practices which are one of the principal causes of the development of antimicrobial resistance.
* Limited availability of food, clean water, sanitation and shelter increases the vulnerability to disease.
More generally, limited resources, environmental overexploitation and the impact of climate change will pose an increasing threat to wellbeing as the world population continues to grow.
Reproductive health conditions are one of the most common causes of death worldwide amongst women of childbearing age. Universal access to family planning can both significantly improve individual health and create better conditions for health generally through promoting population stabilisation. It is one of the UN Millennium Development Goals where progress has been most limited and should form a central part of all overall health strategies.
Population Matters is the UK's leading body campaigning for sustainable populations in the UK and abroad. We conduct education, research and advocacy on the environmental impact of population size.
Population Matters' patrons comprise:
Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE, Naturalist, broadcaster and former controller of BBC Two
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge
Professor Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University
Dr Jane Goodall DBE, Founder, Jane Goodall Institute, and UN Messenger of Peace
Susan Hampshire OBE, Actress and population campaigner
Professor John Guillebaud, Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, University College, London. Former Medical Director, Margaret Pyke Centre for Family Planning.
Dr James Lovelock CBE, Scientist and environmentalist known for proposing the Gaia theory that Earth functions as an organism, and author of The Revenge of Gaia.
Professor Aubrey Manning OBE, President of the Wildlife Trusts and Emeritus Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh
Professor Norman Myers CMG, Visiting Fellow, Green College, Oxford University, and at Universities of Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, California, Michigan and Texas
Chris Packham, naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author
Sara Parkin OBE, Founder Director and Trustee of Forum for the Future, Chair of the Richard Sandbrook Trust, Board member of the European Training Foundation.
Jonathon Porritt CBE, Founder Director of Forum for the Future and former Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.
Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO, Chancellor of Kent University, Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin Institute, and former UK Permanent Representative on the United Nations Security Council
