HAC Symposium: Reimagining Human Health
September 2019
Over the last century, infectious diseases faded from view as the greatest threat to human health. During the same period, chronic inflammatory and noncommunicable diseases like asthma, Alzheimer’s, lupus, arthritis, Crohn’s, IBD, celiac disease, obesity, and others have increased exponentially; noncommunicable diseases now account for over 60 percent of all deaths. New research also points to these environmental factors’ impact on the human microbiome. The Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, along with the Bard Farm, Bard EATS, and the Bard Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water, sponsored an interdisciplinary symposium to ask how it is we can teach and work to address the crisis posed by the threat to the human microbiome.