The World Health Organization has passed two important resolutions which stress the link between health and the environment.
The first resolution, Health and the environment: a roadmap for an enhanced global response to adverse health effects of air pollution, elaborates on 2015’s World Health Assembly resolution, which called for action to reduced health risks caused by air pollution (WHA68.18). The roadmap proposes concrete courses of action to minimize the circa seven million deaths per year around the world due to air pollution exposure, which is recognized as “a leading environmental health risk”. It also reinforces the capacity of the health sector to take a leading role in intersectional actions and policies pertaining to the issue of air-pollution and its related diseases.
Among other elements, the roadmap urges Member States to:
- Expand the knowledge base on health impacts of air pollution
- Enhance national and global capacities to assess air pollution, propose interventions, and develop monitoring systems
- Support the development and coordination of action plans and policies at city, regional and national levels
The second resolution, The role of the health sector in the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management towards the 2020 goal and beyond, stressed the need adopt a health-in-all-policies approach and underlined the need of more progress towards minimizing adverse effects on human health associated with chemicals and waste. As such, it requests the WHO Secretariat to develop a roadmap for the health sector at national, regional and international levels in order to achieve the 2020 goal and thereby contribute to the relevant targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Likewise, it urges the preparation of a progress report on the adverse impacts of waste on health and the actions the health sector could take to reduce these.