Health and well-being in the Yucatan Peninsula revisited with a human ecology perspective

Abstract

Human health and well-being are highly dependent of the individual and collective human activities and behaviors, but they are also tied to dynamic ecological determinants in a constantly changing society. These interactions can seem simple or obvious, as the relation between high sugar consumption with diabetes, diving and decompression illness or mosquito bites with febrile infections. But when it comes to a human ecology approach to health problems, the study of the aspects underlying those simple associations become less simplistic. Complex health-related questions can be thus analyzed within the interdisciplinary approach that characterizes the human ecology. In this chapter, we invite you to familiarize yourself with our inclusive approach and to have an insight of the health conditions in the Yucatan peninsula, with emphasis in those that are both endemic and frequent in the region.