The transdisciplinary HUMUS research project examines the potential of health care to contribute in finding solutions to the planet’s ecological crisis at the interface between human health and the environment.

HUMUS combines sustainability science and medicine, and seeks to understand the potential role of health care in promoting sustainability. It examines the need for new knowledge and changes in basic assumptions, concept and view of people and daily operations of healthcare professionals.

Based on identified needs we will develop tools that integrate up-to-date information generated by sustainability science with the work of health care professionals. The key objective is to build a model of comprehensive and sustainable well-being, that recognizes humans as a part of nature, and with the underlying assumption that sustainable well-being stems from diverse, vibrant ecosystems and that the carrying capacity of ecosystems cannot be exceeded in the pursuit of human well-being.

What is traditionally seen as nature conservation is ultimately also about nurturing human health and well-being and therefore very essential for health care.

The project is a three-year project of the Kudelma research group of the Ecosystems and Environment Research Program at the University of Helsinki, funded by the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation.