The Microbiome and the Public’s Health

This chapter examines the possible role of the microbiome in public health. Every person is a living ecosystem with trillions of microorganisms living on and in their bodies—their microbiome. Microbiome research is a relatively new scientific field where everything seems to influence it; the microbiome’s composition is altered by sleep, stress, and exercise. Microbiome scientists believe it would indeed be meaningful if, someday, by controlling one’s behaviors, one might know how to control one's personal microbial community and thus one’s health. Yet a “personalized” microbiome remains a distant and unlikely dream. Microbiome scientists agree that the environment, from the personal to the atmospheric, matters. And that people’s social networks, with whom and how they interact, matter too. As such, it is important to prioritize attention to the known drivers of longevity and quality of life for today’s population—such as poverty, insurance gaps, homelessness, and the broad distribution of preventive services. These are hard problems that people can change, and which would benefit from strategic health planning.