Choices of morbidity outcomes and concentration-response functions for health risk assessment of long-term exposure to air pollution.

Background: Air pollution health risk assessment (HRA) has been typically conducted for all causes and cause-specific mortality based on concentration-response functions (CRFs) from meta-analyses that synthesize the evidence on air pollution health effects. There is a need for a similar systematic approach for HRA for morbidity outcomes, which have often been omitted from HRA of air pollution, thus underestimating the full air pollution burden. We aimed to compile from the existing systematic reviews and meta-analyses CRFs for the incidence of several diseases that could be applied in HRA.

WHO Air Quality Guidelines for Europe.

This article describes the WHO Air Quality Guidelines and highlights two projects that were initiated to update the risk assessment of the main air pollutants: "Systematic Review of Health Aspects of Air Quality in Europe" and the "Global Update of WHO Air Quality Guidelines." The report of the Systematic Review emphasizes that the accumulated evidence is sufficient to require actions reducing the health impacts of air pollution in Europe. The global update of the air quality guidelines focuses on particulate matter (PM), ozone, NO2, and SO2 and addresses issues associated with the practical feasibility of attaining the guidelines in developing countries.

Industrial activities in sites at high environmental risk and their impact on the health of the population.

A second mortality analysis of 15 areas of Italy identified in 1986 by the Italian Ministry of Environment as areas at high risk of environmental crisis has confirmed and extended the findings of the first. In regional comparisons, these areas, in which potentially hazardous industries are located, show excesses of deaths from almost all cancers and other diseases, particularly among men. Although more information is needed to identify corrective public health measures, the official recognition of areas in need of cleaning up, which appears to be unique to Italy and which fostered the study, is a promising beginning.

The Precautionary Principle, science and human health protection.

As technology advances rapidly, so do applications with potential adverse implications on human health. The possible threats include risks that can be substantial, far-reaching and irreversible, and currently available methods of investigation, designed to deal with direct exposure-disease associations, are not always suitable. Growing interest is being paid to health effects that may be the consequence of distal, "upstream" determinants.

Housing and health in Europe: preliminary results of a pan-European study.

Objectives: The World Health Organization's Regional Office for Europe has undertaken a large study to evaluate housing and health in 7 European cities.

Methods: Survey tools were used to obtain information about housing and living conditions, health perception, and health status from a representative sample of the population in each city.

Results: In Forli, Italy, the first city studied, preliminary findings indicate some important potential links between housing and health.