Inches

UPDATE no.26 August 2002 INCHES

2002-The International Network on Children's Health, Environment and Safety

Dear member of INCHES,

In this update :
News items
Articles:
Asia: Water Is Region's Biggest Killer Of Children
Asia's pollution cloud highlights world-wide dangers to children
Some good news about childhood asthma
Conferences
INCHES funding

News items

INCHES website
Any items related to children’s are welcome. Someone who wants to do something or knows someone who can do some voluntary work for the website can reply to the secretariat.

WSSD summit in Johannesburg
INCHES will be participating in several events at the summit in Johannesburg. These events are realted to children health. Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, a leading figure in sustainable development and Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), will premiere for the media her new initiative 'Healthy Environments for Children' at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
Living, playing and learning in healthy environments will help children lead healthy lives, reach their full potential and make a solid contribution to the development of their countries now and in the future.
Yet, well-established environmental health risks from water, food, air and soil have not been adequately tackled in the past, and new risks are emerging. The magnitude of the problem is enormous: estimates suggest that almost one third of all human disease can be attributed to environmental risk factors, with children highly susceptible to environment-related disease and disability that can remain with them throughout their entirelives.
Dr Brundtland's new initiative consists of creating a wide alliance of partners, the keystone in the building of a global movement whose ultimate goal is to save millions of young lives and improve the health and quality of life of the world's children.
Two other WHO events at the Summit where INCHES will be participating:
An official Summit side event consisting of an interactive discussion with speakers on 'Health and the Environment in the 21st Century: Priorities and Action Strategies to Secure our Children's Future.' Topics to be addressed include linkages between health and the environment, the economic burden of ill-health related to environmental degradation and investing in children and the environment.
WHO: Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General, WHO; Ms Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF); Dr Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director, UNEP; Ministers of Health and the Environment; Physicians for Social Responsibility.
WHEN: 13:15-14:45; Friday, 30 August 2002;Ballroom 3, Sandton Convention Centre

A symposium on Health and Sustainable Development addressing topics such as investing in health for development, children's health and the environment and research partnerships. The first of the event's five sessions is a ministerial roundtable on the theme "Pushing back the frontiers of poverty." Four panel discussions will follow. Discussants will explore key policies and action strategies to address health and sustainable development issues. There will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
WHO, South African Department of Health, South African Medical Research Council, United States National Institutes of Health, United States Agency for International Development, UNICEF, International Development Research Centre (Canada), International Society of Doctors for the Environment and Physicians for Social Responsibility and INCHES.
WHEN: 9:00-19:00; Saturday, 31 August 2002.;Ubuntu Village Conference Centre, Ubuntu Village, Wanderers
Complex, North Road, Illovo, Sandton, South Africa

Activities of interest from the Canadian Institute of Child Health (CICH):

1) The e-Parenting Network, www.eparentingnetwork.ca, is a new interactive web site with valuable information on parenting issues that can be watched, read, downloaded and printed. e-Parenting Network, funded in part by Human Resources Development Canada, is managed by the Canadian Institute of Child Health. This multi-media program allows families to access, from their own communities, evidence-based parenting information delivered in an easygoing, friendly manner. Questions can be directly e-mailed on the site. Topics covered include: Climate Change, Breastfeeding, Nutrition, Safety and Effective Parenting Strategies.

The module on Climate Change and Children’s Health is based on the CICH Foundation Analysis completed in 2001 called “Changing Habits, Changing Climate” along with a set of related fact sheets and a brochure. There are also two video sections. One section is an interview where an expert explains Climate Change and how it may affects the health of children in Canada. The second section is in a question and answer format where web-cast viewers were invited to ask the expert their own questions.

2) The Canadian Institute of Child Health was chosen to complete a feasibility study of Children’s Environmental Health Indicators for North America by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The study will be available for distribution from the CEC early in 2003. Should you have any relevant studies or publications, please send them to Don Houston at dhouston@cich.ca.

3) We are in the process of completing two other projects that may be of interest to INCHES members. The first project, “Healthy Spaces for Healthy Development”, will consist of a web site that provides practical advice for parents and caregivers to better protect children from environmental hazards. We expect the site to be complete in late 2002. The second project, “Children’s Environmental Health: Building Capacity for Policy Development and Facilitating Policy Change”, seeks to build a Canada-wide network of individuals and organizations interested in children’s environmental health. This project is anticipated to increase NGOs ability to address children’s environmental health issues in order to help the federal government form better policy. Queries should be directed to Don Houston via e-mail: dhouston@cich.ca.

4) In June 2002, Don Houston, attended two conferences on Environmental Health in Washington, D.C.: “Healthy Children/Healthy Environments” and “Healthy Ecosystems/Healthy People: linkages between biodiversity, ecosystem and human health”. If interested, notes from these conferences are available from Don Houston at dhouston@cich.ca.

Inititiative Canada
An initiative to help address environmental threats to human health
Proposal for Discussion
There is a growing appreciation of the linkages between environment, health and poverty. Up to one-fifth of the global burden of disease may be associated with environmental factors. The poor, especially women and children, share a disproportionate burden of disease from environmental sources. Inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene practices and lack of access to safe water are major causes of ill-health and death, as is poor air quality.
The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development recognized as its first principle the interconnection between human health and the environment and sought ways to conserve, protect and restore the health of the Earth’s ecosystems and inhabitants. However, ten years later, and even with growing awareness, environmental threats remain a leading cause of illness, hospitalization and death worldwide.
Building Capacity For More Effective Policy Responses
To enhance effectiveness in tackling environmental threats to human health, knowledge needs to be consolidated and shared to influence policy responses at the local, national, regional and international levels.
Canada’s Proposal – Strengthening Health and Environment Linkages:
From Knowledge to Action
As part of its contribution to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Canada is proposing a global initiative focused on health and environment linkages. The first step would be to assemble a comprehensive, timely and policy-relevant base of existing knowledge on the scientific, technical and socio-economic dimensions of health and environment linkages. This knowledge synthesis would highlight best practices, key knowledge gaps and barriers to action. The second component would be to use the results of the knowledge synthesis as a tool for governments and partners to develop strategies and strengthen decision-making related to human health and the environment. The knowledge gained through the synthesis would be transferred through technical workshops, publications, an internet portal, and the assistance of experts.
Resulting benefits include improved capacity to use technology to remediate environmentally contaminated areas, intersectoral collaboration that achieves greater efficiency in addressing cross-cutting issues and better informed decision-making to protect the environment and human health.
Seeking A Global Partnership
The success of the Health and Environment Linkages Initiative depends on a global partnership of governments, non-governmental bodies and international organizations. The World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme have expressed their interest in actively participating. Canada extends an invitation to other parties interested in joining the partnership to contact us.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Health and Environment Linkages Project Liaison; Government of Canada;
2230-10 Wellington Street, Hull, Quebec, Canada K1A 0H3; Email: H&ELinkages@ec.gc.ca
Telephone: (+1) 819-953-0262 or (+1) 613-946-6471

Articles

ASIA: Water Is Region's Biggest Killer Of Children
Two children die every minute as a result of polluted water and poor sanitation, mainly in Asia, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific said today. ESCAP added that growing populations, urbanization and economic development are worsening problems related to the quantity and quality of Asia's fresh water supply.
A senior ESCAP environmental official said contaminated water is the single biggest killer of children in Asia, while more children have died worldwide from the effects of severe diarrhea -a result of polluted water and poor sanitation -- than all the people killed in armed conflicts since World War II. A 2000 report by ESCAP and the Asian Development Bank blamed inadequately enforced legislation and ineffective water management.
A delegation from ESCAP, led by Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su, plans to call on international representatives at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which begins Aug. 26 in Johannesburg, to improve fresh water management, foster conservation and promote regional cooperation (ESCAP release, Aug.14).

FROM THE TVE WEBSITE:
Asia's pollution cloud highlights world-wide dangers to children
This week - 10 years after US air force pilots first spotted it - a vast brown pollution cloud over Asia has made
international headlines. A report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) describes how the 3-km deep cloud is disrupting weather patterns, lowering agricultural output and creating air pollution problems which can cause severe respiratory disease. Advised by the World Health Organisation, UNEP scientists estimate that it may be killing a million people prematurely each year.
This week also sees the broadcast on BBC World of TVE's Earth Report - Children of the New Millennium. The
programme reveals that while children make up only 12 per cent of the world's population, they still suffer over half the burden of environmental diseases.
Children of the New Millennium looks at the environmental threats to children's health worldwide.
From Cambodia and China to South Africa and the USA. The programme opens in Nicaragua where children suffer respiratory illnesses as a result of pollution from indoor cooking on open stoves. Similarly it is the lack of cheap and clean cooking alternatives that has contributed to the brown cloud over Asia. "The big problem here could be cooking at home," Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has commented. Crutzen won the Nobel Prize for his work on the hole in the ozone layer.
In Nicaragua Rogerio de Miranda heads an organisation that aims to improve on traditional ways of cooking and heating. "The smoke problems are mainly creating respiratory infections among women and children because children stay with the woman in the home and stay around the kitchen" he says. However there is hope. Perhaps if the domestic stoves Children of the New Millennium shows being introduced in Nicaragua can be used elsewhere in the world, emissions can be cut.
Also this week on BBC World, Earth Report's sister series Life investigates the dangers children around the
world face while working. With new figures from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) numbering 170 million children employed in hazardous work, this week's Life called, “Danger Children at Work”, reports from
Guatemala where poverty forces children as young as six into the often lethal process of making fireworks.

Some good news about childhood asthma
After rising sharply for two decades, childhood asthma rates are finally holding steady, finds a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to data compiled from five national health surveys, the prevalence of childhood asthma attacks hit a plateau from 1997 to 2000, after rising an average of 4.3 percent each year from 1980 to 1996.
But despite this promising news, significant racial disparities still exist among asthma cases, say the authors. In the late 1990s, black children were more than three times more likely to be hospitalized, and more than four times more likely to die from an asthma attack, than white children.
Although overall asthma prevalence was down, healthcare visits related to asthma rose steadily during the 1990s ? up an average of 3.8 percent per year. The biggest increase in doctors' visits was among children ages 0 to 4, but adolescents were more likely to die from the condition. Asthma deaths, while still rare, increased by 3.4 percent per year from 1980 to 1998.
One possible reason for the recent plateau in asthma cases is the impact of "clinical and public health intervention and prevention efforts," the authors write in the August issue of Pediatrics. They specifically point to the National Asthma Education and Prevention program for helping asthma rates by educating parents on reducing children's exposure to allergens (dust mites, pets, etc.) and preventing symptoms with medication. The researchers say more studies are needed to confirm whether the plateau is temporary or the sign of a positive trend.
By Stephanie Watson

Conferences

The First Mid-Atlantic Conference on Children's Health and the Environment: Clinically Important Issues in Children's Health and the Environment
September 21, 2002
This conference will discuss topics such as: environmental issues in the school setting, asthma, environmental issues in rural areas, mold, pesticides, and water pollution. The conference program will emphasize small group interactions and opportunities to ask questions directly to the panelists and faculty members.
In Washington, DC, USA
For more information, contact the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health & the Environment at (202)-994-1166.
Web Site: http://www.health-e-kids.org.

3rd. European Conference on Pediatric Asthma
October 28-29, 2002
The Conference will present the latest research findings and discuss their impact on the current understanding of asthma and its treatment. The meeting will consist of interactive teaching sessions with direct audience participation and plenary sessions.
In London, United Kingdom.
For more information, contact Castle House Medical Conferences at +44 (0)1892-539606 or e-mail at asthma@castlehouse.co.uk
Website: http://www.castlehouse.co.uk

The Eighth Annual Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Conference
December 11-13, 2002
Jointly sponsored by the University of South Florida Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, Center for Disease Control, and the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies. Abstracts deadline: May 3, 2002.
In Clearwater Beach, Florida, USA
For more information contact Erica Thomas by phone at (813)-974-6695, or by e-mail at contend@hsc.usf.edu.

Previous announced conferences
Healthy Children Conference will take place on October 10-11, 2002 in Chernivtsy (Ukraine) at the Bucovinian Medical Academy Conference Center. (See Update no. 24)
Conference secretariat: Department of Developmental Pediatrics Bukovinian State Medical Academy; Post Box # 601 58010, vul. Grushevskogo, 1, Chernivtsi-10, Ukraine
E-mail - chernivtsi2002@yandex.ru, pediatr2@msa.cv.ua
www.chernivtsi2002.narod.ru

ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICIANS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT OF TURKEY organizes
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT
October 18th – 20th, 2002, Istanbul, Turkey. See Update no. 24.
Website: www.cevrehekim.org.tr ; Contact: Dr. Günay Can: 90-212- 586 15 49 alpincan@yahoo.fr ; Dr. Ümit Sahin: 90-212- 244 56 68 umitsa@turk.net

The 1st Annual Conference of AIRNET
The first of three Annual Conferences of AIRNET.The conference will be held in the Brunei Gallery, SOAS in London, UK, December 11-12, 2002, immediately following the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine meeting to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Great London Smog event of December 1952. See update no.25.
Contact Marjan Tewis (m.tewis@iras.uu.nl) or go the AIRNET website and follow directions there.
More information about the SMOG Conferences can be found at the website www.lshtm.ac.uk/smog.
For registration at the SMOG conference please send an email to smogconference@lshtm.ac.uk

INCHES funding

Did you locate a possible sponsor? Do you a private sponsor? Can we mail some information on INCHES to one of your friends? Any donations (or suggestions of possible donors) are welcome at bank account nr.: 526292490 ABN AMRO (swiftcode ABNANL 2A), Dieren, Netherlands.

Last updated 21 August 2002

[Home] [Join Inches!] [About Inches] [Inches Activities] [Main Themes] [Coordination Group] [Support] [Site Index]