World population, world health and security: 20th century trends

Overpopulation is a growing problem that has come to the attention of the media and government in recent years. This seems like a true statement, but in fact overpopulation has been a pressing issue throughout history. In A. Bashford’s report entitled “World population, world health and security: 20th century trends” from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health the author uses population statistics from the last century to support his claim that overpopulation, and its connection to security, resource management and world health has been a problem for many years that needs to be properly addressed in modern politics.

The author’s states that in 1928 “The common argument that linked population to security and international relations was that nations would become, simply, too crowded, and that standards of living would drop in a way that created unstable social environments.”(Bashford, 2008) Throughout the first and second world wars overpopulation was an economic security problem and less of a health one. People of that time believed that more people increased the chance of wars and communism. This concerns Bashford and his belief that world health is of the utmost importance instead of world security.

After the wars the concentrated efforts of the world leaders tended towards the fear of our planet’s limited resources and space. “Rather like the current urgency of climate change debate, earlier generations discussed world overpopulation in catastrophic terms: not just war or peace, but incapacity of the planet to sustain the species.” (Bashford, 2008) People were finally starting to realize the effects of overpopulation on the planet as a whole instead of just security to the human race. This was a turning point for the subject but work still needed to be done to reverse and stop the effects of overpopulation.

The view of overpopulation as a cause to dwindling resources stayed present but solutions began to be proposed. “And in 1968 the World Health Assembly endorsed family planning as a basic component of primary health care” (Bashford, 2008) This was implemented when birth control was a new product and awareness around the subject was on the rise. Thus by the 1970’s the security and resource management concerns of overpopulation had changed to a woman’s rights movement that advocated informing the public to keep them and their world secure. This was the first time when serious action had been taken. By the late 1960’s: “It was a standard argument to link developments in public health and infectious disease control to increasing rates of population growth for the world as a whole.” (Bashford, 2008) Even now the effect of this statement can be seen with the H1N1 flu.

So the questions that begs so be asked is if for decades the effects and trends of overpopulation have been studied and analysed why has so little been done to change it? Maybe the largest problem with today’s society is not the fact that we are overpopulated but the lack of awareness and action for solution to this problem.

Bashford, A. (2008). World population, world health and security: 20th century trends. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , 62(3), Retrieved from http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/62/3/187 doi: 10.1136/jech.2006.055608