Planetary Health: From Evidence to Action–Confronting Reality (Including Submissions Associated with the 2024 Planetary Health Summit (PHAM2024)

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce this Challenges Special Issue for the Proceedings of the 2024 Planetary Health Summit and 6th Annual Meeting in Sunway City, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 16 to 19 April 2024.

Planetary health is a solutions-oriented approach focused on tackling humanity’s actions that affect the natural systems so that both people and the planet can thrive. This recognizes the intricate connections between the health and well-being of people and the planet's natural systems. To advance humanity’s wellbeing, the declining state of planet Earth can no longer be ignored. The planetary health agenda seeks to address the impact of human-caused disruptions of Earth’s natural systems on our health and well-being through applied research, policy, and practice in an intentional and catalytic effort to take on one of the greatest challenges the world has faced. This also offers solutions-oriented approaches, bridging different disciplines and sectors across the arts, humanities, and sciences.

For science to be transformational, it must be crafted for action and communicated in ways that the public can understand. Thus, the theme for PHAM 2024, the sixth in a series of meetings stretching back to 2017, is ‘From Evidence to Action: Confronting Reality’.

Convened by the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health and the Planetary Health Alliance, the meeting brings together a diverse group of scientists, policymakers, civil-society, private sector representatives, educators, students, and others to learn about these complex relationships, seek solutions, and build skills for action and change.

We warmly welcome submissions on any topic relevant to planetary health, including full papers based on conference presentations, abstracts, discussions, workshops, satellite events, and/or ideas arising from the event. We also invite other submissions from the wider community that focus on understanding and improving the complex relationships between human health and planetary health—from any researchers, clinicians, practitioners, educators, students, community groups, and artists seeking to advance the planetary health agenda.

Submissions may include original research, perspectives, case studies, initiatives or projects (either complete or still in progress), protocols, new proposals or ideas, and more creative works. While topics may be on any aspect of human, environmental, and societal health, we encourage all authors to articulate the ways in which their submission is relevant to some (or preferably, many) of the grand challenges of our time and/or ways in which the work could contribute to planetary health. Examples of topics may be found below in the “keywords” below.

It is our hope that this Challenges Special Issue will facilitate collaborative vision and shared agendas that drive activity to link virtually every endeavor aimed at solving the interconnected challenges of our time—large and small alike—for the flourishing of people, places, and the planet.

Articles in this Special Issue will be published without charge in this open access journal. For Malaysian researchers, please refer to funding guidelines by MOHE on publishing before submission to journals.

Dr. Jemilah Mahmood
Dr. Marie Studer
Prof. Dr. Elil Renganathan
Prof. Dr. Fatimah Ahamad
Dr. Menaka Ganeson
Prof. Dr. Susan Prescott
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Challenges is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is free of charge. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• planetary health
• ecology, biodiversity, ecosystems, microbiomes, and anthropogenic ecosystems
• mental health, emotions and wellbeing, solastalgia, and ecological grief
• noncommunicable diseases (ncds) and infectious diseases
• food systems, nutrition, food processing and nutritional ecology, and planetary diets
• lifestyle and the exposome, systems biology, machine learning, preventive medicine, bio-psychosocial medicine, and high-level wellness
• environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change
• urban landscapes, natural environments, nature relatedness, green space, green prescriptions, biodiversity interdependence, cooperation, and integration
• social and ecological justice, intergenerational justice, health disparities, socioeconomic inequalities, displacement and conflict, migration, and economic, political, and commercial determinants of health
• life-course (developmental origins), transgenerational perspectives, and epigenetics
• value systems, indigenous knowledge, cultural shift, narrative medicine, storytelling, belief systems, traditional cultures, and spirituality
• healthy finance, finance and wellbeing, and doughnut economics
• education transformation and education revolution
• just transition, governance, and transformational change
• science-based communication and social media