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Children's Environmental Health Indicators
[last updated November 9, 2007 3:21 PM]
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General Information
Partnership website(s) |
Expected TimeframeJanuary 2003 - September 2008 |
Partners
Governments:
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Major Groups:
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UN System:
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Other intergovernmental organizations:
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Thematic Focus
Primary Themes:
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Secondary Themes:
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Geographic Coverage
Geographic Scope: Global
Country(ies) where the partnership is being implemented: Austria, Cameroon, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Oman, Poland, Romania, Spain, Tunisia, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Zimbabwe |
National Focal Points
This partnership has made contact with the national focal points for sustainable development in the countries involved
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Goals and Objectives
Summary of the partnership's goals and objectives
Child survival hinges on having the basic needs to support life; among these, a safe and healthy environment is fundamental.However, children everywhere are negatively affected by adverse environmental conditions. Each year, at least 3 million children under age five die due to environment-related illnesses. Acute respiratory infections annually kill an estimated 2 million children under the age of 15 and as much as 60% of acute respiratory infections worldwide are related to environmental conditions. Diarrheal diseases claim the lives of nearly 2 million children every year; 80 to 90 percent of diarrhea cases are relates to environmental conditions, especially contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.
The United States is committed to improving children's health through increased collaboration among governments, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental organizations, the private sector, communities, and UN agencies to protect children from environmental health threats. These environmental health threats include early childhood exposure to chemicals and toxic substances, unsafe and inadequate quantity of drinking water, lack of sanitation infrastructure and inappropriate hygiene, polluted indoor and outdoor air, and vector-borne diseases.
Such threats may lead to health effects ranging from developmental disorder and perinatal diseases, diarrhoeal diseases, respiratory diseases (e.g. asthma), insect-borne diseases (e.g. malaria) and unintentional injuries.
The goal of this multi-year initiative is to develop and use children's environmental health indicators to improve children's environmental health at global, regional, national and local levels. These indicators are similar to economic indicators and their development and reporting will help fill gaps between information on environment and information on health, putting into focus the special vulnerabilities of children. Ultimately, these indicators will help guide environment, health and development policy. Global children's environmental health indicators are effective tools to:
- Improve the quality of information available in order to facilitate the ability of policy-makers to improve environmental conditions for all children;
- Assess children's environmental health and monitor the success or failure of interventions to address children's environmental health problems; and
- Measure progress and contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development goals.
The United States is committed to improving children's health through increased collaboration among governments, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental organizations, the private sector, communities, and UN agencies to protect children from environmental health threats. These environmental health threats include early childhood exposure to chemicals and toxic substances, unsafe and inadequate quantity of drinking water, lack of sanitation infrastructure and inappropriate hygiene, polluted indoor and outdoor air, and vector-borne diseases.
Such threats may lead to health effects ranging from developmental disorder and perinatal diseases, diarrhoeal diseases, respiratory diseases (e.g. asthma), insect-borne diseases (e.g. malaria) and unintentional injuries.
The goal of this multi-year initiative is to develop and use children's environmental health indicators to improve children's environmental health at global, regional, national and local levels. These indicators are similar to economic indicators and their development and reporting will help fill gaps between information on environment and information on health, putting into focus the special vulnerabilities of children. Ultimately, these indicators will help guide environment, health and development policy. Global children's environmental health indicators are effective tools to:
- Improve the quality of information available in order to facilitate the ability of policy-makers to improve environmental conditions for all children;
- Assess children's environmental health and monitor the success or failure of interventions to address children's environmental health problems; and
- Measure progress and contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development goals.
Targets and Progress
Partnership targetsThis partnership aims to:
* Increase collaboration among governments, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental organizations, the private sector, communities, and UN agencies to protect children from environmental health threats. * Under the UN system and with collaboration of governments, NGOs, and other interested parties, develop and promote use of children's environmental health indicators. * Propose modifications to the existing data collection surveys in the UN system to incorporate data needs for core children's environmental health indicators and in turn, develop and promote the use of such indicators. * Improve assessment of children's environmental health and monitor the success or failure of interventions to address specific children's environmental health problems. * Facilitate the ability of policy-makers to improve environmental conditions, specifically for children. This effort will foster international communication and coordination to develop and test children's environmental health indicators. This may involve identifying the most useful existing indicators for specific problems, developing new indicators, identifying data sources and gaps, and setting priorities for action. Children's environmental health indicators will prove to be effective tools for * understanding the status of children's environmental health in countries; * monitoring trends in the environment, in order to identify potential risks to health; * monitoring trends in health resulting from exposures to environmental risk factors, * investigating potential connections between environmental conditions and health outcomes; * raising awareness about environmental health issues across stake-holder groups; * producing data to establish baselines, share best practices, and measure progress toward stated goals; * informing policy making at all levels of government; and * targeting actions where they are most needed. Central to the concept of sustainable development is the capacity of children to sustain, build, and improve the societies they inherit. Healthy children learn better and are able to lead more productive lives, creating a strong base on which an economy can grow and society can prosper. Alone, indicators will not solve all the urgent problems facing children around the globe. However, they will provide an important tool to policy-makers, enabling them to make better decisions and design effective interventions that will protect children from the many environmental health threats they currently face. By focusing on the world's children, we invest in our future and the future of generations to come. Next steps include: Years 1 - 2 Develop child-specific indicators to monitor the effects of environmental risk factors on children's health with relevance to decision-making. Identify and work with key agencies and institutes that will be implementing the process at the country level. Years 2 - 4 Conduct pilot studies to validate the applicability of selected indicators. Pilot studies will be cooperative efforts conducted with partner organizations and countries that are already working on children's environmental health issues. Integrate children's environmental health indicators with existing surveys; where surveys are not in place, encourage survey design or community self-assessment efforts. Coordinate efforts to monitor and report on indicators. |
Progress against targetsAs a result of the 2002-2007 efforts of the Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators, the development and reporting of children's environmental health indicators has expanded worldwide from three countries in one region to more than twenty countries in five regions. In addition, five major international organizations are now collecting data on children's environmental health indicators.
The work to date has brought together, for the first time, information on a broad range of environmental risks and their impacts on children's health on a country-by-country basis. The USEPA has offered financial and/or technical support to five regions: - African Region - Eastern Mediterranean Region - North America - European Region - Pan-American Region A North American pilot was completed by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the results were published in a report entitled "Children's Health and the Environment in North America - A First Report on Available Indicators and Measures" in January 2006. (http://www.who.int/ceh/publications/northamericanreport/en/index.html) In the European region, the operation of a new comprehensive environment and health information and knowledge system has been set up in order to help to identify and prioritize common and widespread environmental health problems. The report entitled "Children's Health and the Environment in Europe: A Baseline Assessment" was published and presented at the Intergovernmental mid-term Review Meeting in Vienna (Austria) in June 2007. The launch of the ENHIS (European Environment and Information System) website, a comprehensive information and knowledge system, was also launched in Vienna in June 2007. This tool has been developed to help to identify and prioritize wide-spread environmental health problems in the European Member States, enable monitoring the effects of actions taken, and contribute to building advocacy and communication strategies (http://www.enhis.org/) The report from the pilot in Tunisia (the Eastern Mediterranean) was presented at a National workshop in December 2006 and is being launched in November 2007. Results from the pilot in Oman will be presented at a National workshop in December 2007. The report for the pilot project in Africa (Cameroon, Kenya & Zimbabwe), based on the national reports finalized in 2006, will be available beginning 2008. Development and reporting of indicators in these regions is at various stages of progress and more detailed information is available on the Children's Environmental Health Indicators website (http://www.who.int/ceh/indicators/en/) on an ongoing basis. This partnership has established collaboration among a broad range of key players in governmental, non-governmental, UN and international agencies to monitor children's environmental health. Different mechanisms to collect indicators and promote children's health through healthier environments are being evaluated and a clearing-house has been established at the global level to facilitate information exchange. This platform includes a database of international survey data to assist with data gathering. Ultimately, the clearing-house will include data obtained through regional pilots as well as lessons learned with respect to their implementation. This effort highlights that major information gaps as well as concerns about data quality in assessing children's environmental health indicators persist. Issues of data comparability are being addressed in a WHO evaluation of all indicator pilots in order to work towards more harmonized reporting of key children's environmental health indicators over time. |
Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer
Arrangements for Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer
- Human resources development/training
- Education/building awareness
- Institutional strengthening, including local participation
- Technology transfer/exchange
This initiative is designed to foster communication among various organizations to determine the best ways to transfer technology and build the capacity to use children's environmental health indicators in different parts of the world. The details of these arrangements will be determined by participants during the course of this project and may vary from region to region reflecting different needs.
Relationship to International Agreements on Sustainable Development
How the partnership contributes to the implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
The importance of children's environmental health is discussed in detail in Chapter 6 of Agenda 21 (Protecting and Promoting Human Health). This initiative is designed to help achieve specific objectives stated in Agenda 21:
* Reducing childhood illness and death from diarrhea (6.12.e).
* Reducing childhood mortality from and ensuring adequate treatment for acute respiratory infections (6.12.f).
* Dissemination of information on the risk and control of diseases (6.13.b.).
* Prevention of diseases through control of environmental factors (6.13.d).
* Improvement of health indicators for urban dwellers and development of new quantitative objectives for urban health (6.33).
* Identification and compilation of statistical information on health effects to support cost/benefit analysis, prevention and abatement measures (6.40).
Improving children's environmental health is also an important step toward meeting goals of the Millennium Declaration. For example:
* Reduce child mortality. Two of the major killers of children, acute respiratory infections and diarrhea, have strong links to environmental exposure. Addressing environmental health threats is a critical step in reducing child mortality.
* Ensure environmental sustainability. This broad goal includes the specific objective of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. This is a critical step toward improving children's health, because children bear a disproportionate burden from waterborne illnesses.
* Achieve universal primary education. Unsanitary school environments cause many girls to drop out of school and can result in illnesses, such as diarrhea and worm infections, that affect learning and school attendance. Universal education cannot be achieved until school environments are safe and healthy for all children.
* Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Diarrhea exacerbates hunger and malnutrition. Efforts to improve nutrition must include measures to prevent diarrheal diseases.
* Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Malaria exposure risk is closely related to environmental conditions that allow disease-carrying mosquitos to breed. Reducing this environmental exposure risk is an important part of an effective malaria prevention strategy.
Relevant Sections of Agenda 21
* Reducing childhood illness and death from diarrhea (6.12.e).
* Reducing childhood mortality from and ensuring adequate treatment for acute respiratory infections (6.12.f).
* Dissemination of information on the risk and control of diseases (6.13.b.).
* Prevention of diseases through control of environmental factors (6.13.d).
* Improvement of health indicators for urban dwellers and development of new quantitative objectives for urban health (6.33).
* Identification and compilation of statistical information on health effects to support cost/benefit analysis, prevention and abatement measures (6.40).
Improving children's environmental health is also an important step toward meeting goals of the Millennium Declaration. For example:
* Reduce child mortality. Two of the major killers of children, acute respiratory infections and diarrhea, have strong links to environmental exposure. Addressing environmental health threats is a critical step in reducing child mortality.
* Ensure environmental sustainability. This broad goal includes the specific objective of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. This is a critical step toward improving children's health, because children bear a disproportionate burden from waterborne illnesses.
* Achieve universal primary education. Unsanitary school environments cause many girls to drop out of school and can result in illnesses, such as diarrhea and worm infections, that affect learning and school attendance. Universal education cannot be achieved until school environments are safe and healthy for all children.
* Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Diarrhea exacerbates hunger and malnutrition. Efforts to improve nutrition must include measures to prevent diarrheal diseases.
* Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Malaria exposure risk is closely related to environmental conditions that allow disease-carrying mosquitos to breed. Reducing this environmental exposure risk is an important part of an effective malaria prevention strategy.
Relevant Sections of Agenda 21
Protecting and promoting human health conditions; Protection of the quality and supply of freshwater resources: application of integrated approaches to the development, management and use of water resources; Children and youth in sustainable development
Relevant Sections of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation Sustainable development in a globalizing world ; Health and sustainable development
Coordination and Implementation
Coordination Mechanism of the PartnershipWHO is the coordinator of this initiative and will guide its implementation. Further explanation can be found in "From Theory to Action: Implementing the WSSD Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators" (WHO, 2004).
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Implementation Mechanism of the Partnership |
Resources
Funding Currently AvailableAmount in US$: 500,000
Source(s): Government
Currently-available funds are sufficient to launch this initiative. Additional funds are being contributed for region-specific efforts, including both in-kind and financial support. |
Non-financial resources availableType(s):
Source(s):
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Funding SoughtRequired Amount in US$: 0
Source(s) already approached:
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Non-financial resources soughtRequirement(s):
Source(s) approached and details:
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Additional Information
Additional Relevant Information
This initiative is proposed for consideration and adoption by the global community, followed by the creation of an international task force of experts. This international task force would be aware of and familiar with ongoing regional efforts to create and use children's environmental health indicators so that regional progress can be used to advance the global effort.
Links:
* Based on the results of regional pilots, a global report is being compiled to present results of all regional pilots, discuss their implications for children's environmental health and critically evaluate achievements of this initiative by mid-2008.
* Canada launched a Type 1 partnership on environment and health linkages at the World Summit.
* The World Health Organization launched the Healthy Environments for Children Initiative at WSSD.
* The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation has a resolution and agenda for action on children's environmental health for the US, Canada, and Mexico.
* The Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas agreed in March, 2002 to further develop, harmonize as appropriate, and use indicators to inform decision-makers in environment and health management and to support scientific assessment capacity-building to integrate health and environment efforts for the region.
* In April, 2002 the Group of Eight called on WHO, OECD and other countries and organization to take specific action to improve children's environmental health.
* OECD is proposing work on economic valuation of children's health effects due to environmental pollution and degradation, together with its work on environmental indicators, this will complement WHO's ongoing work.
* UNEP focuses on environmental health and the impact of chemicals.
* The WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation compiles extensive data on water supply and sanitation coverage, system performance, and infrastructure investment.
Links:
* Based on the results of regional pilots, a global report is being compiled to present results of all regional pilots, discuss their implications for children's environmental health and critically evaluate achievements of this initiative by mid-2008.
* Canada launched a Type 1 partnership on environment and health linkages at the World Summit.
* The World Health Organization launched the Healthy Environments for Children Initiative at WSSD.
* The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation has a resolution and agenda for action on children's environmental health for the US, Canada, and Mexico.
* The Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas agreed in March, 2002 to further develop, harmonize as appropriate, and use indicators to inform decision-makers in environment and health management and to support scientific assessment capacity-building to integrate health and environment efforts for the region.
* In April, 2002 the Group of Eight called on WHO, OECD and other countries and organization to take specific action to improve children's environmental health.
* OECD is proposing work on economic valuation of children's health effects due to environmental pollution and degradation, together with its work on environmental indicators, this will complement WHO's ongoing work.
* UNEP focuses on environmental health and the impact of chemicals.
* The WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation compiles extensive data on water supply and sanitation coverage, system performance, and infrastructure investment.