Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators
Fact Sheet
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC
December 22, 2006
|
FEATURED RESULT: As a result of the 2002-2006 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 20 countries in five regions. In addition, five major international organizations are now collecting data on children's environmental health indicators. |
Purpose of Initiative:
Additional Information
-- "Children's Health and the Environment in North America -- A First Report on Available Indicators and Measures" 2006 available at:
-- Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators website: http://www.who.int/ceh/indicators/en/ | Clean air, safe water and untainted food are essential to early childhood survival and the ability of children to eventually become productive members of society. However, children everywhere are negatively affected by adverse environmental conditions. Each year, more than 3 million children under age five die due to environment-related causes and conditions. Morbidity from chronic exposure to pollutants in air, soil, and water, or overexposure to harmful chemicals compromises the normal growth, development, and ability to learn of many millions more children each year.
The United States is committed to improving children's health through increased collaboration among governments, civil society, inter-governmental organizations and the private sector, to protect children from environmental health risks. These include asthma and respiratory diseases from indoor and outdoor air pollution; perinatal diseases and developmental disorders; childhood exposure to chemicals and toxic substances; unsafe drinking water, inadequate quantity of drinking water and inappropriate sanitation; protein-energy malnutrition and unintentional physical injuries and vector-borne diseases such as malaria.
To address these issues, the U.S. government and other partners launched the Children's Environmental Health Indicators Partnership at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.
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 toward the achievement of the Millennium Development goals.
The World Health Organization serves as the Partnership's Secretariat.
Partners:
Governments: Canada, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States of America.
International Organizations : World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations Environment Program.
Civil Society: Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), and the International Network on Children's Health, Environment and Safety (INCHES).
Partnership Targets:
Targets for the Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Include:
- Development of a Children's Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe.
- Preparation of a WHO global report on the pilot projects under the Initiative.
Progress Toward Targets:
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
- Europe an 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 or http://www.cec.org/programs_projects/pollutants_health/children/index.cfm?varlan=english ) In the European region, the operation of a new comprehensive environment and health information and knowledge system will help to identify and prioritize common and widespread environmental health problems and will be publishing the Children's Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE) assessment report in view of the Intergovernmental mid-term Review Meeting in Budapest in 2007. Reports from pilots in the Eastern Mediterranean and the African Region will also be issued by the end of 2006.
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 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.
Next Steps: Based on the results of regional pilots, a global report will compile results of all regional pilots, discuss their implications for children's environmental health and critically evaluate achievements of this initiative by early 2008. Options for broadening the work geographically, as well as for continued improvements in data quality will be explored.
Resources:
USEPA has provided $500,000 in financial assistance for the implementation of the Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators. In addition, USEPA and other U.S. government agencies provide technical assistance to this partnership. Other partners continue to provide financial and technical assistance to advance the initiative's goals.
USG Primary Points of Contact:
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency:
Martha Berger (Phone: 202/564-2191; Email: Berger.Martha@epamail.epa.gov ).
| 
BACK TO ALL INITIATIVES
