Children's Environmental Health Indicators

Purpose of Initiative: Child survival hinges on basic needs to support life; among these, a safe and healthy environment is fundamental. However, children everywhere are negatively affected by adverse environmental conditions. Each year, at least 3 million children under age five die due to environment-related illnesses.¹ Acute respiratory infections annually kill an estimated 2 million children under the age of 15 and as much as 60% of acute respiratory infections worldwide are related to environmental conditions. Diarrheal diseases claim the lives of nearly 2 million children every year -- 80-90% of diarrhea cases are relates to environmental conditions, especially contaminated water, and inadequate sanitation.²

The United States is committed to improving children’s health through increased collaboration among governments, non-governmental organizations, inter-governmental organizations, the private sector, communities, and UN agencies to protect children from environmental health threats. These environmental health threats include asthma, developmental disorders, childhood exposure to chemicals and toxic substances, unsafe drinking water, inadequate quantity of drinking water, polluted indoor and outdoor air, and vector-borne diseases such as malaria.

The goal of this multi-year initiative is to develop and use global environmental health indicators for children’s environmental health. Children’s environmental health indicators are similar to economic indicators, and their creation will help to fill gaps between information on environment and information on health, putting into focus the special vulnerabilities of children in order to help guide environmental, health, and development policy. Global children’s environmental health indicators are effective tools to:

• Measure progress toward a number of broad goals adopted in the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration;

• Assess children’s environmental health and monitor the success or failure of interventions to address children’s environmental health problems; and

• Facilitate the ability of policy-makers to improve environmental conditions, specifically for all children.

¹  World Health Organization http://www.who.int/inf/en/pr-2002-12.html
²  United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Children’s Fund and World Health Organization, Children in the New Millennium

Resources: Beginning in 2003, the U.S. has pledged $500,000 and technical assistance over 4 years for international development of children’s environmental health indicators. Many partners will make contributions of technical staff and expertise, with additional resources coming from current and new members of the partnership.

Partners:

Governments:  Canada, Italy, Mexico, and the United States of America.

International organizations:  World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the Organization for Economic and Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Nongovernmental organizations:  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 Efforts to Date:

• EPA has initiated extensive discussions with current and potential partners to define their potential roles and responsibilities. WHO and UNICEF have agreed to serve as co-leaders of this initiative. A next step will be to form a steering committee to coordinate activities among partners in fall of 2003.

• Partners have begun jointly drafting a paper summarizing the state of knowledge on indicators for children’s environmental health and analyzing the feasibility of several options for implementation, to be completed in 2003. This analysis will help guide the development of indicators and pilot projects in subsequent years.

USG Primary Points of Contact:  Environmental Protection Agency: Martha Berger (Phone: 202/564-2188; Email: berger.martha@epa.gov).