Children’s environmental health: New programming

Shidonna Raven
20 minutes ago
2 min read

Oct 14m 2010

Source: NIH

National Library of Medicine

National Center for Biotechnology Information

Photo Source: Unsplash

New programming

New prevention projects should incorporate adaptations whose impacts have been carefully considered for unintended consequences so that they can simultaneously improve existing health disparities, build community resilience, and decrease climate-related impacts (Garg et al. 2009). Local public health efforts can make substantial differences in the morbidity and mortality from natural disasters (Keim 2008) as well as the influence of climate on vector-borne diseases. Resilience can be increased through proper preparation and engagement of local stakeholders in scenario-based preparation (Ebi and Semenza 2008), as well as through use of climate-risk expertise in the insurance industry to inform public policy (Crichton 2007). Within the United States, a community’s relationship with its location—its “sense of place”—has implications for the motivation, development, and implementation of an effective public health response to prepare for climate change (Hess et al. 2008).

An emerging tool to assess new policies, programs, and projects is the health impact assessment. In climate change work, health impact assessments are an emerging practice that strives to quantify the positive and negative health effects of an intervention (Patz et al. 2008). The cost assessment of a capacity-building project or other adaptation measure should include risks and benefits of alternative measures (e.g., increased used of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in response to decreasing crop yields or increased pest burdens) and also of inaction. The assessment should also include the potential reduction in current non-climate-related burden of disease (i.e., health co-benefits). A shift in agricultural production away from livestock and toward provision of plant-based diets is one example of a means to reduce cardiovascular disease and GHG production (Friel et al. 2009). Other studies have quantified co-benefits of improved respiratory health, reduction of missed work days, and reduction of premature deaths—all derived from improved air quality that would result from lower air concentrations of ozone and particulate matter through mitigation activities (e.g., improved cookstoves) that reduce GHG emissions (Cifuentes et al. 2001). Both Lancet (2009) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (2009) are putting substantial effort into exploring the public health impacts, including co-benefits, of GHG mitigation. Both mitigation and adaptation efforts coupled with existing public health strategies and also developed as new programs are essential to reduce the increasing burden of disease on children from climate change.