Population growth, resources and health: challenges for public health professionals

Current global developments as regards demographic growth and resource utilization represent one issue most difficult to tackle, in terms of (general and health) policy as well as in human terms. In the 1960s-1970s, the debate was active and led, among other things, to an expansion of technical cooperation programs aiming at fertility reduction. The 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest saw controversy about the respective importance of family planning services, on the one hand, and overall development on the other. The debate was then less visible but has recently been given new impetus, in particular at the September 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. We have a serious, and in some ways seemingly unmanageable problem, marked by the political difficulties and social constraints which are bound to result from effective actions leading to reduction of resource consumption, or to fertility decrease. Public health professionals may make a significant contribution in promoting better information and dialogue and the view that health has to be an ecosustainable state.