Sustainable Health Development through Health Education: Universities’ Role in Curriculum Development with Ecological Public Health Principles

As the traditional healthcare professionals’ role in the functions of healthcare setting is being established intensely based on ‘Bio-medical’ Model of disease-oriented focuses from the past epidemiological transition in the epochs. The gradual shift in disease patterns characteristic of different stages of epidemiological transition are by no means simple, as projected from the Age of (i) Pestilence and famine, (ii) Preceding Pandemics, (iii) Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases, and (iv) Delayed Degenerative Diseases. However, the foresight of the latest transition in this 21st Century is now emerged, in which environmental and climate mediated health risks have increasingly become a priority for the health implications with actual and potential catastrophic and highly complex dynamics of direct and indirect effects on widely diverse health impacts. In this regards, the establishment of ecological public health is crucial to modern public health. This paper proposed a newly emerging role for healthcare professionals to integrate ecological public health education as holistic vision and action agenda towards sustainable ways of living for sustainable health development. The role of Universities in curriculum development by integrating and transforming these epistemology competencies through health education agenda, as capacity building in support of sustainable health development is entirely indispensable.