Planetary Health: Building the Field and Growing the Movement (Including Manuscripts 2022 Planetary Health Annual Meeting and Festival)

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce this Challenges Special Issue for the Proceedings of the 2022 Planetary Health Annual Meeting and Festival, October 31-November 2, 2022, at Harvard University in Boston, MA, USA.

Planetary health recognizes the intricate connections between the health and well-being of people and the planet's natural systems. This growing field of applied research, policy, and practice, presents an intentional and catalytic effort to take on one of the greatest challenges the world has faced. It seeks to characterize the impact of human-caused disruptions of Earth’s natural systems on our health and well-being. Planetary health also offers solutions-oriented approaches, bridging different disciplines and sectors across the arts, humanities, and sciences.

Convened by the Planetary Health Alliance, the theme of the meeting, Building the Field and Growing the Movement, 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 planet.

Dr. Samuel Myers
Prof. Dr. Susan Prescott
Prof. Dr. Jemilah Mahmood
Prof. Dr. Antonio Saraiva
Prof. Dr. Onisimo Mutanga
Dr. Marie Studer
Jo Bjorgaard
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 semiannually journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Please note that all papers in this special issue will be published 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.