UOC signs São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) signed the São Paulo Declaration at the PHA annual meeting and undertook to contribute to preserving the planet's health. The declaration has the support of the United Nations Development Programme and is a call for action addressed to public administrations, the private sector, the media and civil society in general. Overall, more than 230 organizations from 47 countries representing some 19 sectors of society have signed the declaration.

The São Paulo Declaration is the first document in which the global planetary health community stresses which actions are necessary, urgent and decisive to achieve a fundamental change in our way of living on Earth. This declaration sends clear messages to all of society's stakeholders and indicates the need to undertake the so-called "Great Transition", a fair transformation toward a world which optimizes the health and well-being of all people and of the planet. The document has been published in the medical journal The Lancet.

"The UOC's adhesion demonstrates our University's commitment to contribute to the fair, ecological transformation advocated by the Declaration. As a university institution, the UOC plays a crucial role and has a key responsibility in encouraging the generation and transmission of planetary health knowledge. We should therefore also work on initiatives which bring health closer to the citizens globally, while respecting the limits of the planet's natural systems," said Pastora Martínez Samper, the UOC's Vice President for Globalization and Cooperation.

The UOC's Faculty of Health Sciences backed signing the declaration. "The São Paulo Declaration is aligned with the work we've been carrying out to design training programmes focused on the connection between the health of the planet and that of human beings. This can be seen in the Master's Degree in Planetary Health launched this semester together with the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). It aims to train professionals to address the challenges raised in this declaration," said Cristina O'Callaghan-Gordo, co-director of the master's degree, a member of the UOC's Faculty of Health Sciences and an ISGlobal researcher.