Canada's International Development Research Centre's eco-health projects with Latin Americans: origins, development and challenges

BACKGROUND: Since its founding in 1970, Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has supported research by concerned Latin American researchers on environments and human health relationships. Framing of such relationships has changed through different periods. METHODS: Participant observation, bibliographic searches, document review, and interviews with key IDRC staff. FINDINGS: From the early years of multiple different projects, IDRC developed more focussed interest in tropical diseases, pesticides, agriculture and human health in the 1980s. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in the early 1990s gave impetus to examination of links between ecosystems and human health or 'EcoHealth'. Projects in Latin America built on earlier work but extended it in methods (transdisciplinarity, community participation, gendered approach) and scope (broader land use and development paradigm issues tackled). A key IDRC-funded activity in Latin America was 'EcoSalud', an Ecuadorian effort, which has worked with farming communities, agricultural researchers, health practitioners and local politicians to advance integrated pest management, better recognize and treat poisonings and improve pesticide-related policies. ONGOING CHALLENGES INCLUDE: mobilizing sufficient resources for the primary prevention focus of EcoHealth activities when primary care infrastructure remains stretched, promoting micro-level change in diverse communities and ecosystems, and addressing power structures at the global level that profoundly affect environmental change