ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how paleopathology can help people beyond academia to appreciate how and why humans and their diseases have co-evolved alongside changes in their environment, why we still have diseases that we thought had long gone into the history books, and how deep time perspectives can help us to understand what we need to do in the future to combat these diseases. This is achieved by exploring the importance of being healthy today and the impact of the epidemiological transitions (or waves) on health and well-being, with a specific focus on the current third wave. This is followed by an example of research from the paleopathological record to illustrate the relevance of what bioarchaeologists do for living populations today. The chapter will then focus on the need to engage much more with the wider public to illustrate how our deep time contextually driven perspectives on health and well-being help to contextualize health problems today. Using examples from recent public engagement events, it will also emphasize that not only is this very important, it is also very rewarding.
