Healthy People Living on a Healthy Planet—The Role of Education of Consciousness for Integration as an Instrument of Health Promotion

Abstract

Life on this planet depends on the level and quality of integration of the different species that inhabit it. The economic, social and environmental impacts and consequences of the Anthropocene Age result from the mistaken assumption that Homo economicus’ decisions are always rational. In every human society, the bidirectional interaction between social determinants and the self-determination of peoples’ lifestyles influences their behaviors according to a set of attitudes, beliefs, values, and consumption patterns. These behaviors, in turn, generate a specific quality of social life and degree of equity in health. Engagement with the 2030 agenda of sustainable development goals can be achieved through lifelong learning movements that foster the re-education of values and paradigms via training from social actors, such as environmental educators, health promoters, and cultural mobilizers, grounded on the ethics of caring. The much-needed environmental education provides a propitious field for innovations in human development based on a new approach to the education of consciousness and health promotion. Through the articulation of human needs related to multidimensional aspects of health, societal living, the natural environment, and sustainable development, the approach of Integrative Health aims to promote healthy people living on a healthy planet. Integrative Health represents a harmonizing approach that avoids paralyzing bioethical conflicts in the polysemic field of determinants of health. Experiences of socio-environmental responsibility, such as that of Itaipu Binational, which made viable the Cultivating Good Water program, an internationally recognized program that received the Best Water Management Practices award at the UN’s 2015 Water for Life Awards, evidence the possibility of this transformation in different territories and cultures. The expected result from Integrative Health Promotion based on education of consciousness is an increase in the social capital of communities and a greater commitment to the values and principles of a new human rationale, that of Homo sustentabilis. The consciousness education of integrative health principles facilitates the learning to care for oneself, others, and the environment.