8.
• A comprehensive review of public policy on children’s environmental health in Europe (Jensen & Smith, 2014) features the WHO process and the Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE) call for action. It is contained in the first-ever publication for physicians and medical students, Textbook of children’s environmental health.
• NGOs have helped extend public interest in and scientific recognition of early life exposures by establishing wide and receptive audiences, especially
since the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the European Environment Agency (EEA) joint publication of Children’s health and environment: a review of evidence (Tamburlini, von Ehrenstein & Bertollini, 2002).
• Significant gains have also been made in building new and strengthened partnerships for the implementation of Parma Declaration goals that involve non-profit-making health insurers, respiratory doctors, paediatricians, asthma patients, breast cancer groups and new European chapters of scientific societies.
Box 5. A national project: training in environmental health and medicine for Belgian health professionals
Belgian doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other health professionals currently receive limited training in environmental health, and few health professionals were taught, through their education, about the adverse effect on health of the environment. But this is going to change in the future.
Training and certificate
All Belgian authorities are now working together to implement a certificate in environmental medicine for certified health professionals specializing in the field of environmental medicine. Also, basic training and continuing education in environmental health and medicine will be introduced in the education of future and active health professionals. Within five years, both the certificate and the trainings will be operational.
Belgian National Health and Environment Plan
Training health professionals in environmental medicine is an initiative from the Belgian National Cell Environment and Health. This National Cell is an environment and health partnership between the federal government, communities and regions. This partnership started 10 years ago with a legal agreement, when Belgian authorities developed the Belgian National Environment and Health Action Plan. Among its goals is making health professionals aware of the threat the environment can pose to human health.
Unique project
In 1996, WHO already stated that doctors should be able to evaluate, monitor and treat disorders linked to the environment. The project to train Belgian health professionals has a great societal relevance, for several reasons.
It meets a demand of patients, who learn more about the adverse effects on health of the environment through the media.
Health professionals will be able to perform their job more efficiently because of this project.
It will provide a set of relevant instruments for identifying environmental causes that affect health.
In the long run, it will contribute to improving public health in Belgium which, in turn, will have a positive effect on the country’s economy.
• HEAL’s communication activities for the European health and environment community include: a monthly bulletin of policy news from the EU, WHO, European and national institutions and civil society (7000 subscribers);
a Health and Environment theme at an international environmental film festival; and a major social media programme, including a photo diary,
Environmental Health Champion, that features WHO and other leading policy-makers and scientists for the past 10 years.
• HEAL’s advocacy initiatives, developed with the help of evidence-based, health economics reports, have called for health-beneficial policy changes related to mercury, climate change and coal.
Chemicals
NGO activities in this area include the following.
• Environmental NGOs have raised awareness of the health impacts of asbestos via high-level policy meetings, training workshops, and informative material published in several languages (WECF, 2014a).
• The WECF network’s Project Nesting provides a web platform (10 languages, thousands of visits per month) and training programmes, for parents and professionals working with children, on improving children’s environmental health through safer
consumer products (WECF, 2014b).
• HEAL and its members and partners have provided a Chemicals Health Monitor project (HEAL, 2014) to showcase how early life exposure contributes to an increase in chronic disease among children and adults.
It also initiated EDC-Free Europe, made up of 50 campaign partners, for capacity-building and advocacy and information activities on endocrine disrupting chemicals. HEAL and WECF support civil society involved in the strategic approach to international chemicals management (SAICM) implementation.
Water
NGO activities in this area include the following.
• WECF’s successful initiative on safe water and sanitation for children has contributed to the development of the 2014–2016 programme of work, adopted under the Protocol on Water
and Health, which now features improving water, sanitation and hygiene in schools.
• WECF has developed a compendium for developing water and sanitation safety plans, involving schools in the pan-European region.
Climate change
NGO activities in this area include the following.
• Advocacy capacity to ensure the positive health impact and the health benefits of strong climate and energy policies has been strengthened by
HEAL participation in the Working Group on Health in Climate Change and international climate negotiations and by publishing key advocacy reports and information materials.
• The first ever Climate and Health
Summit, in Durban, in 2011, resulted in: the creation of the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA, 2013), the second Climate and Health Summit,
in Warsaw, Poland, in 2013; new advocacy materials; and a website – supported by WHO.