New guide on Healthier Populations & environment and climate change
Overview
Globally, 23% of all deaths could be prevented through healthier environments – and scaled-up action is required. This document presents an overview of sectoral actions that can be taken by various actors – and the support that is being offered by the World Health Organization – to create healthier environments, including in priority settings such as workplaces, cities, dwellings, health care facilities, and emergency settings. Key risk areas are addressed, such as air pollution; water, sanitation, and hygiene; chemical safety and radiation; and climate change.
The actions presented provide an initial overview and overall policy directions and refer to more detailed information for the next steps. They focus on intersectoral collaboration between a wide range of partners – international organizations, governments, and national and subnational actors – to create safe, enabling, and equitable environments for better health and a more sustainable future.
Healthier environments could prevent almost one-quarter of the global burden of disease. The COVID-19 pandemic is a further reminder of the delicate relationship between people and our planet.
Clean air, a stable climate, adequate water, sanitation and hygiene, safe use of chemicals, protection from radiation, healthy and safe workplaces, sound agricultural practices, health-supportive cities and built environments, and a preserved nature are all prerequisites for good health.Key facts
- Healthier environments: Globally, 23% of all deaths could be prevented through healthier environments
- Pneumonia: 45% of all pneumonia deaths in children less than 5 years old are caused by the household use of solid fuels and kerosene paired with polluting cookstoves.
- Air pollution: About one in eight deaths can be attributable to air pollution, mainly from noncommunicable diseases.
- Cities: By 2050, 70% of people will live in cities, which concentrate many environmental risks to health
- Contaminated water: At least 2 billion people drink faecally contaminated water. Cholera, usually transmitted though faecally contaminated water or food, affects 47 countries, with about 2.9 million cases reported annually.
- Chemicals: More than 1.6 million deaths per year are caused by chemicals in the air, in consumer products, at the workplace, or in water or soil. Most of these deaths result from chronic exposure.
- Hand washing: Only 26% of people wash their hands after toilet use.
- Diarrhoea: Inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene cause 829 000 preventable deaths from the diarrhoeal disease per year, including 297 000 preventable deaths of children aged 5 years and under.
- Climate change: Climate change is increasing the number of people that are affected by floods, exposed to heatwaves, or at risk from vector-borne diseases such as dengue. Health facilities are becoming dysfunctional after extreme weather events, and climate change-related migration is increasing.