Sociology, environment and health: a materialist approach

Objectives: This paper reviews the sociology of environment and health, and makes the case for a post anthropocentric approach based on new materialist theory. This perspective fully incorporates humans and their health into ‘the environment’, and in place of human-centred concerns considers the forces that constrain or enhance environmental capacities. We develop an approach to research and policy development based on this approach that has relevance for public health practice and policy. Study design: A discursive paper that uses a hypothetical vignette concerning child health and air pollution to explore the new materialist model advocated in the paper. Conclusion: A new materialist and post-anthropocentric sociology of environment and health radically reconfigures both sociological theory and its application to research health and the environment and develop; associated policies. Theoretically, human health is re-thought as one among a number of capacities emerging from humans interactions with the social and natural world. Practically, the focus of intervention and policy shifts towards fostering social and natural interactions enhance environmental (and in the process, human) potentiality