Friends With Co-Benefits Live Longer
Planetary health is a vision of a cleaner, healthier world.
When we take measures against climate change we can have co-benefits that make our lives healthier and our environment cleaner.
Living longer with improved quality of life.
Simply put, co-benefits are win-win measures. Two or more for the price of one. Something for nothing (since you would have done it anyway).
An article was published this month that is all about co-benefits: Impact on mortality of pathways to net zero greenhouse gas emissions in England and Wales: a multisectoral modelling study; The Lancet Planetary Health vol 7 February 2023 Pages e128-136, James Milner et. al. The researchers quantified projected increased survival from plans (that they call pathways) to bring down greenhouse gases in England and Wales.
They found that there would be an increase in survival of 2 million life-years by 2050 in one pathway, 2.4 million life-years in the other.
Why life-years? It is a way to combine and compare data on survival in populations, in this case how many more years of life people in England and Wales who are impacted by the pathways will live. Two million-life years could be two million people living a year longer on average, or 20 million live a tenth of a year longer on average. But that isn’t quite it. Those examples are just to show that life-years is a flexible term. It isn’t important what the average is except to compare to other findings, other research or other approaches to addressing the problems. We don’t have a way to say from the data and the how the analyses were done how much longer any given individual or even sub-group will survive.
Life-years is a very big picture outcome.
Is that meaningful? Yes, to get an idea of the magnitude of what we might accomplish if we follow these pathways to lower CO2 emissions.
Big picture: two million life-years or more is a big deal.
So where did these gains in life-years come from?
Primarily by making the home healthier and more efficient!
The biggest effect was from decreasing indoor pollution and increasing ventilation and insulation. And, yes, that includes getting rid of gas stoves (let’s save a deeper dive into that controversy for another post).
A plug-in portable induction cooktop. An efficient way to start cooking with electricity without investing in a new stove or rewiring your kitchen.
Next was low greenhouse gases (GHG) from energy specifically for the home.
The third most effective pathway strategy in extending life was eating less red meat. Not none! No one is coming after your hamburger. In one pathway it was cutting back red meat consumption by 50%. The pathway also includes eating more fruit, vegetables and legumes. That is, a healthier diet, but no need to be extreme about it; even modest changes can make a big difference in aggregate. You can read more about a diet good for planetary health and find resources on our lifestyles page.
This, by the way, is an example of why it is hard to say what the survival benefit is for a given individual or group when you are evaluating population level survival. Maybe you already have a healthy diet. It may not help you directly, but it may extend your neighbor’s life considerably.
The fourth was more active transport: walk and bicycle more. Again, maybe you already do this. But your neighbor may not!
Low GHG from electricity generation and transport were way below the home and lifestyle changes. Not because they aren’t important for climate change, just that the survival co-benefit of the top four are, well, for most of us, closer to home! Remember this is a big picture look. If you live near a coal-fired power plant the health benefits of shutting that plant would be huge for you and your family!
Since the research end-point is survival benefits, looking at life-years, rather than say disability or specific diseases, it doesn’t address lesser insults to health and quality of life directly. However, it is certainly the case that further co-benefits include fewer sick days and increased productivity, less strain on the health care system, as well less stress on individuals and families.
A happier world.
Get healthy, live longer, help the environment. Gotta love co-benefits!