A professor at the Harvard School of Public Health with a background as a farmer and naturalist and a passion for social justice, Levins advocates the broadest possible approach. His field of inquiry, which he calls human ecology, encompasses physical and social determinants of health, including the impact of inequality. Too frequently, separate specialties look at nutrition, infectious disease, pollution, mental health and economic inequality. But think of what we might miss. Poor nutrition and mental stress affect our ability to fight disease.
Inequality increases exposure to pollutants, unsafe physical surroundings and infection.
They are all interrelated. In other words, it doesn't take much to tip the balance in favor of devastating disease or a cycle of failure and joblessness. This leads Levins to the conclusion that vulnerability is more important than the disease itself. And, where traditional public health researchers may look to genetics or individual behavior to explain the differences, he expands the inquiry to external stressors of all kinds. Levins believes that an ecologic approach might have resulted in more effective responses to malaria, the AIDS epidemic, outbreaks of food poisoning and the emergence of drug resistant bacteria.