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Children’s
Environmental Health Related Meetings
IPA/WHO/UNEP
Workshop:
Children’s Health and the Environment
From
12 to 14 October, 2005, UNEP, WHO and the International Pediatric
Association (IPA) organized a Workshop on ‘Children’s
Health and the Environment’
in Nairobi, Kenya,
with support from a grant from US/EPA. The workshop was hosted by
UNEP at its Headquarters in Gigiri to promote the recognition,
assessment and study of environmental factors that have an impact on
the health and development of children, and more specifically, to
incorporate children’s environmental health into the training
of
health care providers. Participants were a group of about 60 medical
professionals, nurses, and public health officials from 21 African
countries. Some of the participants represented national or
international pediatric organizations or NGOs. The workshop focused
on pediatric diseases linked to environmental contaminants, using
pediatric cases to illustrate the problems and solutions. The main
objective of the workshop was to enable the African health care
sector to assess, recognize, manage and prevent pediatric diseases
linked to environmental factors present in the places where children
live, play and learn. The aim was for participants to learn about the
harmful and beneficial effects of environmental factors and discuss
how they can work together to improve the environment for children.
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The
workshop was designed to enable participants to: (1) Identify risks
to children from environmental tobacco smoke, chemicals, air, water
and food contaminants, emerging issues, household and industrial
products, and other environmental hazards; (2) Describe how to
recognize, diagnose, prevent and manage adverse effects linked to
these environmental risk factors; (3) Describe why children may be at
increased risk of adverse health outcomes and developmental
consequence from environmental exposures to chemical, physical and
biological agents; (4) Describe when and how the fetus, the child and
the adolescent may be exposed to environmental hazards in different
rural and urban settings; (5) Discuss a spectrum of exposures
including exposures to men and women prior to conception and
exposures because of particular cultural practices and diets,
poverty, malnutrition, conflict or child labor; and (6) Practice
becoming leaders in environmental health education and prevention in
the community.
During
the course of the workshop, presentations were made by Pierre
Quiblier (on the Health
and Environment Linkages Initiative
- HELI); Maaike
Jansen and Alex Alusa (on global climate change, focusing on the
particular vulnerability of Africa and the direct and indirect
effects on child health), Rob de Jong (on phasing
out lead in gasoline in sub-Saharan Africa
and the
outcome of a study of blood lead levels in Kenya, which compared
rural and urban settings) and Takehiro Nakamura of the UNEP Global
Environment Facility (GEF) office (in a session on persistent
organic pollutants (POPs)). UNEP
NYO was an active
member of the organizational committee.
Several training modules from the
WHO Training Package for the Health Sector in children's environmental
health were used. This package -prepared with the support of USEPA - is
a set of over 40 power-point modules on different environmental risk
factors, disease groups, childhood characteristics and
environmental case studies and aims at increasing the health sectors'
knowledge about pediatric disease and developmental problems linked to
environmental threats. The modules, developed by a group of
well-recognized environmental health professionals, are referenced and
peer-reviewed. The module on "Children are not little adults"
is available (slides only) online.
Participants
also worked on a ‘Nairobi
Statement’, [in French]
which
encompassed the
participants concerns, priorities and intentions for action. UNEP
accepted WHO and IPA’s request for UNEP’s
involvement in the
organization of similar workshops in India and Haiti in the coming
two years, as well as the proposed follow-up meeting with the
participants of the African workshop (where the commitments made in
the ‘Nairobi Statement’ could be revisited),
tentatively to be
held in late 2007 in Nairobi (possibly to be hosted by UNEP). In
November 2005, a similar workshop took place in Zambia.
WHO/US-EPA
Seminar:
Children Environmental Health Indicators Initiative
UNEP,
as a partner in the WHO/US-EPA-led Children
Environmental Health Indicators Initiative (CEHI),
also in a seminar held on 11 October 2005 in Nairobi, which brought
together different CEHI partners and others involved in CEH
activities in Kenya and the African Region.
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Mombasa
Training on children’s
environmental health
As
a follow-up to the IPA/WHO/UNEP Workshop for African Pediatricians
and others in the healthcare sector on Children’s Health and
the
Environment, two of the nurses that participated (Eileen Mwaluma and
Jacinta Gini) organized a two-day workshop at The Coast Provincial
General Hospital in Mombasa. They are working with the National
Nurses Association of Kenya Coast General Hospital Branch, where they
are active members under the Private Nurses Practitioner Chapter. At
the workshop, held on 15-16 February 2006, they brought together 30
participants, 20 from the Coast Provincial Hospital Medical personnel
and 10 from the Private Nurse Practitioners.
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