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UPDATE no18 February 2002 INCHES
February 22, 2002-The International Network on Children's Health, Environment and Safety
Dear member of INCHES,
In this update :
News items
New members
Inter-American region
European region
African region
Eurasian region
Conferences
INCHES funding
Children's Environmental Health Topics
INCHES network
Kinga Polanska, Master of Public Health at the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Lodz, Poland is working for INCHES from this day on.She will be wokring on issues related to the Network., and working since 2000 at the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine at the Department of Environmental Epidemiology, mainly on environmental tobacco smoke. She can be contacted by email: kinga@imp.lodz.pl
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For your information, the USEPA has just published a new booklet on "Indoor Air Pollution: An Introduction for Health Professionals". The booklet gives an overview, focusing on acute conditions, with patterns that point to particular agents and suggestions for appropriate remedial action
It is avialable online at http://www.epa.gov/iedweb00/pubs/hpguide.html
We are pleased to announce that Growing up in an Urbanising World (Chawla, editor) has just been released and is now available.
Please see below the main feature of the book, and details on how to order. The best and easiest way to purchase it is directly online on UNESCO Publishing’s website at http://www.unesco.org/publishing
The accompanying manual Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth (David Driskell) will be published this Spring (we will inform you as soon as it is available).
GROWING UP IN AN URBANISING WORLD
Edited by Louise Chawla
2002, ISBN 92-3-103817-6
254 pages, graphs, photos, format: 21 x 24 cm
Price: 29,73 euros (26 $US) + 4,57 euros postage
UNESCO Publishing / Earthscan
More than half of all children in industrialised countries live in urban areas, and the same will be true in the developing world in the near future. Yet, by almost all indicators, cities are failing to meet the needs of young people, prejudicing their chances as adults. This book summarizes the results of "Growing up in Cities", an eight-country UNESCO Project (Most Programme), including Australia, Argentina, India, Norway, Poland, South Africa, United Kingdom and USA. The programme explores young people's relationship with neighbourhoods in the industrialized and developing worlds, giving a new emphasis in their active participation in the planning, design and implementation of urban improvements.
The book includes case studies and recommends policies and practices that will make cities more responsive to the needs of children, adolescents and their families. It is written by an interdisciplinary team of child-environment experts from the fields of urban planning, architecture, geography, anthropology, psychology and environmental education.
For further details please visit http://upo.unesco.org/bookdetails.asp?id=3685
Ordering information
The book can be ordered from UNESCO Publishing or from Earthscan.
From UNESCO Publishing:
By mail: 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris O7 SP (France)
By fax: +33 1 45 68 57 37
By e-mail: upo.vente@unesco.org
On Internet: http://www.unesco.org/publishing
Orders must be prepaid by cheque (to the order of UNESCO Publishing, in euros or dollars from a bank established in France or in the United States), or by Visa, Eurocard or Mastercard (please supply card number and expiry date).
For any further information on ordering procedures: publishing.promotion@unesco.org
Association for Realisation of Basic Needs-(Arban) from Bangladesh. They can be contacted at arbn@dhaka.agni.com.
The contactperson is Muhammed Kamal Uddin, coordinator ARBAN
No news
The EU is organizing the Green Week in april. At this week there will be stands of different organisations. INCHES will be having a stand there as well for the week. We offer the possibility of members of the Network to send us there promoting material which we could display at the stand during that week. The stands are free of charge so we wont charge any of you either.
The themes for the green week are: Environment and Children’s Health; Sustainable Consumption and Production; The World Summit and NATURA. Any 3-D or animated exhibits are welcomed.
No news
INCHES will be represented by several Coordination Committee members at the International Conference on Environmental Threats to the Health of Children: Hazards and Vulnerability; 3-7 March 2002, Bangkok, Thailand.
International Conference on Environmental Threats to the Health of Children: Hazards and Vulnerability , Bangkok, 3-7 March 2002
It is with great pleasure that we provide you with further information on the forthcoming International Conference on Environmental Threats to the Health of Children: Hazards and Vulnerability, which will take place 3-7 March 2002 in Bangkok, Thailand.
The Conference aims to raise awareness of children's most pressing needs in relation to environmental health. The primary objectives are to:
• address new scientific data and research results on children's vulnerability;
• discuss how to improve the current health conditions of children;
• increase awareness of the health, education and environment sectors; and
• promote action on the protection of children's environmental health around the world.
The conference will be largely regional in scope and will focus on Children's Environmental Health (CEH) issues most relevant to the South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
However, since environmental threats to children's health are of a similar nature throughout the world, interested scientists and professionals from other Regions would also benefit from attending.
The latest information and regular updates on the conference can be obtained from our website: http://www.who.int/phe/CEH
Chulabhorn Research Institute; Vipavadee Rangsit Highway; Lak Si, Donmoung
Bangkok 10210 Thailand
Tel: 66-2 574 0615; Fax: 66-2 574 0616
W H O Task Force for the Protection of Children's Environmental Health (CEH)
Att. N. Osseiran; 20, avenue Appia; CH-1211 Geneva 27 - Switzerland
Tel: +(41 22) 791 4475 Fax: +(41 22) 791 4848
Email: ceh-conference@who.int
Application deadline for the 2002 International Children's Conference on the Environment (ICC) has been extended to the end of February 2002. The 2002 ICC will be held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada from 21 – 25 May 2002.
The ICC provides children, 10-12 years, an opportunity to share experiences, voice concerns and join a global network to promote positive environmental action.
For further information, including an online application form, you may visit our website at <www.unep.org/children_youth> OR the organizers at <www.iccCanada2002.org>
Encourage children and schools in your locality to apply.
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, the Netherlands.
Children's Environmental Health Topics
In this paragraph we would like to place some items that are important for their contents. If anyone wishes to send in an abstract on any topic related to children’s environmental health and safety, mail it to the email address of the update.
THE INDEPENDENT (Bangladesh) Children's right to environmental health
by Tabassum Dana
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1989. It is an international law,which defines and upholds basic rights for all the world's young people up to the age of 18. The CRC is comprehensive,
universal and unconditional! In 1990, Bangladesh, as one of the first country ratified the CRC. Article 24 of the Convention address to the right of children to the highest standard of health and healthcare attainable. Special emphasis should be placed on the provision of primary and preventive health care. No child should be deprived of health care services.
Article 24 highlights the importance of State Parties to provide adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution. It also highlights the importance and education for children on health and hygiene, environmental sanitation and the prevention of accidents. Article 23 of the CRC addresses the right of children with disabilities to equal access to health and health care facilities as well as equal opportunities to education in mainstream community schools. A disability may have congenital causes, but in most cases impairment of mental and/or physical capabilities is caused by diseases that are preventable or reversible and as such disabilities is both a consequence and a cause of poverty!
A study on street children with disabilities (CSID 1999) revealed that fifty percent of disabilities found, were caused by preventable diseases and a further twelve percent by accidents. Environmental Health Risk of the Urban Slum Underemployment, landlessness and poverty draw many people to the towns and cities. Many end up eventually in the two major urban agglomerations, Dhaka and Chittagong.Urban over-crowding is growing into a major
problem due to this migration and due to the inability of the metropolitan centres to cope.
The result has been the mushrooming of slums and squatter settlements. More than
fifty percent of Dhaka's ten million inhabitants reside in slums (UNEP 1999). Among the social and economic ills, these slum areas are often breeding grounds for environment-associated diseases due to poor hygiene, sanitation and drainage.
The data in the table reflect mainly diseases of infants and young children living in the service area of the Mirpur clinic. So far there have only been limited attempts to resolve the problems associated with squatter settlements and find ways to improve housing and living conditions.Impact on Children Ill health is caused by pathogens in the human environment and ill health due to lack of access of people to food, water, and other opportunities, on which their health and livelihood depends. Although the tremendous population pressure, unplanned urbanisation and industrialisation affect the health of all in urban populations, they impact more sharply on children in low-income groups. Poverty and inequality and their consequences for child health and development often underestimate the environmental aspects of illness and injury and premature death among the infants and young children. A large number of diseases are linked to the unsafe environments where children live, play, learn and grow. These children may be exposed to high levels of pollutants in the
air, water, food and soil. Such health risks can predispose children to irreversible health effects, which may persist through adulthood.
Forty-nine percent of the people living in slum areas area living on the public land and fifty-one percent live in the private land. Services are virtually non-existent and the environmental conditions of the slums are very poor. The children are at constant risk. In the rural areas the environmental scenario is different than urban areas. Risks are there too like drowning, physical and sexual abuse, accidents, and lack of health facilities.90% of the country's children are from low-income groups, living all over Bangladesh. In urban areas their number is also high. Many of these children are living in a one room dwelling or shack in the slums. These children are not born or deserve to live in such conditions. They have a right to live in a better environment, access to safe water, food, air, health, education, and so forth. Basic rights include that children should have a name and identity, access to education, health and food, and that they should be protected from all sorts of abuse, should have a place to stay and to play, protected from all sorts of dangerous jobs that could have an impact on their health. Interviewing some children it has been found that the children don't have any facilities or have these basic rights. Children expressed as a first wish access to education. But due to poverty they are forced to get into jobs where they have to give up their education and their health as many are living below the hardcore poverty line. In Dhaka city fifty-five per cent of the population live below the poverty line.
Urban Children
In a small study of WHO views the following scenario of the children as they are exposed to the most hazardous and unsafe environment:
Access to Water and Sanitation: Dhaka WASA only meets 60% demand of water and 40% are not met by WASA. In Dhaka all areas do not have access to safe water and in case of the slums the majority do not have access to water and sanitation facilities. There are some projects in the slums that have helped to provide water facilities but only a few households have access to those water points, where they have to pay about 50 paisa for 20 litre of water. In many areas WASA water supply are insufficient, as they can not cope up with the rapid growth of the city. The sanitation condition in all the slums is very poor as most the slums have only hanging latrines, with up to 20 persons using the one hanging latrines. Lack of access to safe and sufficient water in the slums leads to many children suffering from various water borne diseases like diarrhoea, typhoid fever, etc. Most often they do not even have access to proper medical treatment. The diarrhoea is
found to be the same in all the slums at around 13%. People, and also children, have a reasonable knowledge of health and hygiene but when it comes to practice, it is difficult to apply this knowledge in the absence of access to sufficient water and sanitation. Over 32% of the disease burden in Mirpur area is directly caused by poor water and sanitation.
Air Pollution: Bangladesh used to have a very high lead concentration in urban air. Children in Dhaka were exposed to high lead pollution and it has been found that the lead concentration in blood even reached 53 (g/dl, which is five times higher than the acceptable level. The ban on lead in fuel will now gadually reduce this health risk in air, while improved circulation of traffic and the banning of older vehicles and two-stroke babytaxis will further help to improve the overall condition of the air we breathe. Children of all income groups suffer from out door air pollution but children of low-income group and street children's living in the slum suffers the most
of indoor air pollution and outdoor (ambient) air pollution. The knowledge about indoor air pollution is nominal among the persons living in that condition. Due to the indoor air pollution the children suffer from various communicable diseases due to overcrowding in one room as where a minimum of four and a maximum ten people are sharing a room. The children also suffer from Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI). Mirpur clinic reports that 34% of the its patients are suffering from these type of diseases. Noise Pollution: In urban areas the noise pollution is very high.In a survey sponsored by WHO on noise pollution shows that 64 percent of the areas surveyed have a higher noise level than permissible. Residential areas, hospitals and schools need to be in a silent zone but the noise levels in such areas reach up to 70-75 dB (permissible limit is 45dB). This excess noise pollution will have impact on the children's health, its educational performance and neurological development. Though the effect of noise pollution is not seen directly, the effect in children health is long term, leading to hearing loss, behavioral change, and impairment of physical and mental development. Occupational Hazard: Children working in the industries are exposed to various kinds of health hazards. Children are working in the glass factory, in the garments, in the welding factories; working as bus conductor; working in the match factory, in the battery recharge factory, children working as black smith, in the brick field, in the construction area, working in the gas burner, working in the printing press, car painter and metal factory, dyeing factory, cement factory, leather industries, steel factory, shrimp factory and so on. While children are working in these industries are suffering from ARI, injuries, peptic
ulcer, skin diseases, common cold, bronchial asthma, tetanus, arthritis, irritating cough, allergic bronchitis, impairment of physical and mental development and so forth. The pay scale of the children in is very low and the working place of the children is not at all acceptable for the children's health. The working children are furthermore deprived from education and access to health facilities. Though most of them want to learn they can not as it would mean giving up their jobs.
Hazardous Waste: Waste management is very poor in the urban areas and most of the slums are built near to the waste-dumping site. Children collect waste papers, plastic and other useful bits and scraps from waste. In the process they may injure themselves and are not attending the injuries. The children are also suffering from various types of skin diseases like scabies and enteric infections transmitted by flies feeding on waste.
Housing and Space: Children are living in one room and they do not have enough space to play around. They are either playing on the streets or on the dump site. Children are exposed to different sorts of accidents and small injuries, caused by waste and traffic on the road side. Cramped living quarters, noise and other stresses may lead to violence by adults as well, to which the children are exposed.
Many children living in urban areas are disadvantaged due to limited or no access to education, health, work, housing and security, food and nutrition. Urban poverty is the most important predictor of environmental health risks. Psychological health problems lead to behavioural change, like drug abuse, violence, suicide and murder. These increase because of adaptive behaviours of crime, and violence are inevitable with high levels unemployment and poverty.Various organisations like Institute of Child and Mother Health, UNICEF, Save the Children Alliance, and World Health Organisation are engaged with children's environmental health and development. All these organisations are working with children from different perspectives, providing children various benefits and trying to protect the children from the poor environment they live in but all these needs more supportive actions. The objectives of World Health Organisation (WHO) on Children's Environmental Health and Development issue are given below :
To raise awareness of the member states about the priority Children Environmental Health issues identified at global, regional and national level.To promote the recognition assessment, prevention and mitigation of the effect of environmental threats.
To provide WHO regions with a methodology for assessing the environmental burden of diseases. To assess the state of children's environmental health by region.On the basis of the above objectives WHO have started to work with children's environmental health and viewing pattern of diseases and cause of the diseases, viewing children occupational diseases, housing and security related diseases, food and nutritional related diseases, and waste and noise pollution related diseases. WHO's country activities involves two different level: influencing policy making at the national level; and case management at the individual and community level.
Any reactions to this article?
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We are looking for some fact sheets or powerpoints presetnations on different children’s environmental topics, like reducing risk from lead, risk from mercury, risk from pesticides, risk form solvents, risk from indoor air pollution, risk from environmental tobacco smoke. We would like to produce factsheets and educational material on these and other topics and have them translated in different languages. If your organisation has produced a fact sheet, please make it available to the network. We will try to have it translated and make it usuable for different countries. PLEASE MAIL your FACTSHEETS to: pvdhazel@inter.nl.net
We are also interested in powerpoint or similar presentations on these same topics. We are collecting them in order to put them on a CD for our members.
Last updated 19 August 2002
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