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Technical Working Group Background |
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| The Environment and Health Strategy, which was jointly published by the Directorates of Environment, Health and Research, has a long-term vision seeking to address the links between poor health and environmental problems, and "reduce diseases linked to environmental factors". The publishing of the strategy builds upon the aims of the Commission's Sixth Environment Action Programme, a specific target of which is that levels of pollution in Europe should not give rise to deleterious effects on human or environmental health. |
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| The SCALE initiative, launched by the European Commission, presents a systematic approach to the development of a European Environment and Health Strategy. It has been developed to address the links between environmental problems and poor health in vulnerable members of society (especially children), and ultimately reduce adverse health effects linked to environmental factors. |
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| The 'SCALE' initiative focuses on Science, Children, Awareness, EU Legislation and Continuous Evaluation. |  |
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| The five issues addressed by SCALE may be summarised as: |
* Science: A move away from the more traditional investigations of the single pollutant/single environmental compartments to a multi-pollutant/multi-compartment framework, leading to increased knowledge of the complex links between environment and health.
* Children: Children are the future of society, and are a particularly vulnerable group due to the effect that pollutant exposure can have on the processes associated with this phase of human development. Research planned as part of the strategy will include studies of hazardous chemicals that are of particular importance to children, including dioxins, heavy metals and endocrine disruptors.
* Awareness: Awareness of the links between environmental problems and human health will be emphasised, both between the environment and health sectors themselves, but importantly, also with citizens.
* EU Legislation: Appropriate EU legislation will complement both national and international initiatives.
* Continuous Evaluation: An evaluation process will establish how effective actions arising from the Strategy have been in targeting the identified problems. On-going assessment will also allow a rapid response to emerging problems as they become known. |
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| To facilitate an efficient working process, priority topics have been chosen and attributed to three Technical Working Groups (TWGs). |
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These are in part subdivided into smaller groups and provided with differentiated mandates. The TWGs are:
* TWG on Integrated Monitoring.
(Subgroups: Pilot projects on Dioxins & PCBs, Heavy Metals, Endocrine Disrupters, and Biomonitoring of Children)
* TWG on Indicators and priority diseases.
(Subgroups: Environment and Health Indicators; Respiratory Diseases, Neurodevelopmental Diseases and Childhood Cancer)
* TWG on Research Needs. |
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| Implementation of the strategy will occur in successive cycles, with the first period, 2004-2010, concentrating on children's respiratory diseases, neuro-developmental disorders, childhood cancers and endocrine disrupting effects. Taking a wider perspective, a second cycle of the strategy post 2010, is likely to concentrate on noise, pesticide and socio-economic issues. In a similar manner to the first cycle of the Strategy, vulnerable groups in society, such as the poor, women of child-bearing age, and elderly etc will be a particular focus for this second stage. |
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In accordance with the requirements of the Environment and Health Strategy, the European Commission is developing an Action Plan that will be presented at the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment & Health in Budapest in June 2004.
As part of the Strategy, an assessment is required of current baseline knowledge and research in the areas of integrated monitoring of dioxins and PCBs, heavy metals, and endocrine disrupters. A main aim of the Technical Working Group on Integrated Monitoring is therefore to review baseline knowledge, which will be detailed in a 'Baseline Report 2004'. In addition, the group will contribute to the identification of actions setting the basis for future work in the areas of integrated monitoring of dioxins and PCBs, heavy metals, and endocrine disrupters.
Further information is available from the Environment and Health website of the European Commission. |
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