Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #122035

Erica Phipps, Environmental Health Management Consultant, 7351 River Road, PO Box 602, Quyon, QC JOX 2V0, Canada, 819 458 1681, ephipps@magma.ca and Bruce Dudley, Senior Vice President, Health and Environment, The Delphi Group, 428 Gilmour Street, Ottawa, ON K2P 0R8, Canada.

Indicators play a key role in informing us about the status of an issue, encouraging action and tracking progress towards stated goals. We use indicators every day for numerous purposes, from tracking the stock market to following trends in diseases to measuring unemployment. What is much less common, however, are indicators that tell us about the environmental health challenges facing our children. North America is on track to be the first region in the world to publish a set of indicators of children's health and the environment. This multi-year project is led by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the International Joint Commission (IJC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States, and represents a contribution to the Global Initiative on Children's Environmental Health Indicators launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002) and led by WHO. The indicators address three thematic areas: (1) asthma and respiratory disease, (2) the effects of lead and other chemicals including pesticides, and (3) waterborne diseases. This session will preview some of the results of this soon-to-be released report, describe the approach taken to compiling indicators across borders and across the environment-health divide, and highlight the key challenges and opportunities that have been identified through this ground-breaking effort.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about indicators of children's health and the environment in North America that are under development, and the collaborative, flexible approach to indicator development that has been used.
• Learn about the experience that has been gained through this project, including the opportunities and challenges of compiling indicators at the regional (international) level.
• Have an opportunity to discuss future opportunities, e.g., your ideas on improving future data collection and surveillance programs/methodologies, cross-border collaboration, integration of health and environmental information resources, etc.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation