The impact of u.s. Energy policy on international health: alternate paths into the future

Historical, sociological, and epidemiological research shows that international health and mortality levels are determined primarily not by health sector policies but, instead, by national and international policies that shape the broader sociopolitical and economic systems within which health sectors are embedded. Such policies have traditionally been considered to lie outside the domain of the health sector and, therefore, not of concern to health educators. One such national policy with the potential to powerfully influence international health and mortality levels is the looming choice between alternate American energy paths: the capital-intensive, large-scale, and centralized "hard" path of non-renewable energy resources; and the labor-intensive, small-scale, and decentralized "soft" path of renewable energy sources. Substantial effort has been directed to projecting the physical environmental impacts in the United States for both paths. But the social environmental impacts of each path and their implications for international health have been ignored. This article reviews links between alternate U.S. energy paths and alternate international health futures, and their implications for health educators around the world.