Achieving sustainable and healthy environments for all: Celebrating 30 years of the European Environment and Health Process
Извор: WUNRN – 12.12.2019
At the First Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Frankfurt, Germany, held 7–8 December 1989, Member States of the WHO European Region initiated the first ever process to eliminate the most significant environmental threats to human health. That same European Environment and Health Process (EHP) is now marking 30 years since its establishment, with a birthday celebration during the ninth meeting of the European Environment and Health Task Force (EHTF) on 9–10 December 2019 in Bonn, Germany.
In 2017, the declaration of the sixth and most recent ministerial conference on environment and health, held in Ostrava, Czechia, identified seven key priority areas for action, and committed to enhance action at the national level through the development of national portfolios for action on environment and health. Notwithstanding the important progress that has been achieved over the past three decades, six of the seven priorities identified in Ostrava still closely reflect the regional priorities identified 30 years ago in Frankfurt. This indicates that there is no room for complacency and that there is a need for additional efforts to overcome the challenges in environment and health that persist in the Region in terms of:
- improved indoor and outdoor air quality;
- ensuring universal, equitable and sustainable access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene;
- minimizing the adverse effects of chemicals on human health and the environment;
- preventing and eliminating the adverse environmental and health effects, costs and inequalities related to waste management and contaminated sites;
- strengthening adaptive capacity and resilience to health risks related to climate change and supporting measures to mitigate climate change;
- supporting the efforts of European cities and regions to become healthier and more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; and
- building the environmental sustainability of health systems.
