European Environment and Health Observatory

Future Needs of Research Infrastructures in Environmental Sciences

Environment and health policy perspective on FP7 Leendert van Bree – MNP / RIVM (*)

Outstanding Environment and Health Issues

Health impact and burden of disease based priorities (physical environment - responsible for 2-8% of total disease burden in EU-25)

• Air pollution (outdoor/indoor)
• Noise
• Radiation
• External safety
• Water quality
• Climate change
• Altered population sensitivity

Quality of life (community liveability)

• Quality of life, well-being, and life satisfaction

Lifestyle and socio-cultural-economic development

Sustainability and urban planning

• Paradigm for Environment and Health Policy
• Decisions, regulatory actions, and legislation
• Improvement and sustainable development of the quality of the environment
• Risk management analysis
• Regulatory options
• Evaluation of public health, social, and economic consequences
• Health effectiveness, cost-efficiency, scenario’s, multicriteria analyses
• Risk communication
• Data and information exchange
• Stakeholders needs and participation
• Health impact, exposure assessment, and quality of life analyses
• Quantifying health impacts, exposures, and source contributions
• Indicators for ‘deaths, diseases, and dollars’ and quality of life
• Risk perception, and life satisfaction

Data Information Infrastructures FP7

• Knowledge-based (basic science capacity building)
• Environment and Health Policy-based (applied science capacity building)
  • to support risk assessment for risk management purposes for known and new risk factors
    • data needs
    • infrastructure needs

Data information needs (top 10)

1. Quantifying health risks
2. Quantifying population exposures
3. Low-level (multi-)exposures - long-term impact, evidence, and causality
4. Understanding of (altered) human vulnerability – demography, ageing (!), climate change
5. Deaths, life shortening, disease burden, quality of life, life satisfaction, risk perception/fear
   • impacts, cost-benefits, CRA, multicriteria analyses, risk prioritization
6. Monitoring / modelling positive impacts of interventions (i.e. policy measures)
   • impacts from equity, efficiency and societal perspectives
7. Early warning on new risk factors
8. Communication and stakeholder participation mechanisms (information needs, data, modelling, outcomes, policy implication and focus)
9. Improvement of risk assessment methodologies and information systems
10. Risk assessment and management framework for sensible decision-making

Infrastructure needs (top 4)

1. EU Environment and Health Information and Management Observatory (i.e. an infrastructure facility)
2. Key words are focus, integration, cooperation, science-policy interface for environment and health information, risk management, and effective policy options
3. Environmental assessment/public health agencies -
   • Focus on policy and risk management priorities > integrated assessments > data needs > research needs
   • FP7 should ask for policy-based priorities, assessment and research frameworks and infrastructures, integration at EU level, and transatlantic tuning
4. Scientific agencies/institutes –
   • Focus on necessary (integrated) assessments, data generation, methodology development (monitoring, modelling).
   • FP7 should ask for European Environment and Health Expertise and Information Centres (the “E&H Observatory”) for impact assessment modules, scientific input, and data base generation and maintenance

European Task Force on Environment and Health There is a need for an initiative to set up a European Task Force on Environment and Health to advice the Commission on:

• Identification of critical environmental health threats
• Assessing causes and impacts
• Provision of effective risk reduction strategies
• Setting of policy needs-driven research agendas
• Training and education
• Intercontinental and global policy and research gearing and also to guide the European E&H Observatory.