Suchergebnisse

Climate change mitigation policies aim to reduce climate change through reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions whereas adaption policies seek to enable humans to live in a world with increasingly variable and more extreme climatic conditions. It is increasingly realised that enacting such policies will have unintended implications for public health, but there has been less focus on their implications for wellbeing. Wellbeing can be defined as a positive mental state which is influenced by living conditions. As part of URGENCHE, an EU funded project to identify health and wellbeing outcomes of city greenhouse gas emission reduction policies, a survey designed to measure these living conditions and levels of wellbeing in Kuopio, Finland was collected in December 2013. Kuopio was the northmost among seven cities in Europe and China studied. Generalised estimating equation modelling was used to determine which living conditions were associated with subjective wellbeing (measured through the WHO-5 Scale). Local greenspace and spending time in nature were associated with higher levels of wellbeing whereas cold housing and poor quality indoor air were associated with lower levels of wellbeing. Thus adaption policies to increase greenspace might, in addition to reducing heat island effects, have the co-benefit of increasing wellbeing and improving housing insulation.

Background: The annual burden of disease caused indoor air pollution, including polluted outdoor air used to ventilate indoor spaces, is estimated to correspond to a loss of over 2 million healthy life years in the European Union (EU). Based on measurements of the European Environment Agency (EEA), approximately 90 % of EU citizens live in areas where the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for air quality of particulate matter sized <2.5 mm (PM 2.5 ) are not met. Since sources of pollution reside in both indoor and outdoor air, selecting the most appropriate ventilation strategy is not a simple and straightforward task. Methods: A framework for developing European health-based ventilation guidelines was created in 2010–2013 in the EU-funded HEALTHVENT project. As a part of the project, the potential efficiency of control policies to health effects caused by residential indoor exposures of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), outdoor bioaerosols, volatile organic compounds (VOC), carbon oxide (CO) radon and dampness was estimated. The analysis was based on scenario comparison, using an outdoor-indoor mass-balance model and varying the ventilation rates. Health effects were estimated with burden of diseases (BoD) calculations taking into account asthma, cardiovascular (CV) diseases, acute toxication, respiratory infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Results: The quantitative comparison of three main policy approaches, (i) optimising ventilation rates only; (ii) filtration of outdoor air; and (iii) indoor source control, showed that all three approaches are able to provide substantial reductions in the health risks, varying from approximately 20 % to 44 %, corresponding to 400 000 and 900 000 saved healthy life years in EU-26. PM 2.5 caused majority of the health effects in all included countries, but the importance of the other pollutants varied by country. Conclusions: The present modelling shows, that combination of controlling the indoor air sources and selecting appropriate ventilation rate was the most effective to reduce health risks. If indoor sources cannot be removed or their emissions cannot be limited to an accepted level, ventilation needs to be increased to remove remaining pollutants. In these cases filtration of outdoor air may be needed to prevent increase of health risks.

The project Costs and Risk Assessment of the Health Effects of the Food System employed biological, chemical and nutritional examples to investigate the health and economic risks of food and nutrition in Finland and the cost effectiveness of controls. The project explored the causes and consequences of the health risks associated with food in Finland and sought appropriate risk management measures. The onset of foodborne health hazards can be slow, and therefore even strong efforts to control them at the population level may take years or decades. Based on the project results, several proposals for action were presented, the most important of which are to: 1. deepen and broaden the risk assessment of the public health impact of the food system to compare different health risks, 2. undertake cost–benefit analyses of food control and health care and 3. to study policy instruments for change. Food contributes significantly to the health of the population, which can be influenced by nutrition and food safety. According to the project results, the main burden of disease (BoD) was caused by the inadequate consumption of fruit and vegetables and the excessive intake of salt and saturated fats, resulting in disease burdens of 36,000, 29,000, 32,000 and 9,200 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)/year, respectively. Reducing the intake of salt and saturated fats in particular would be a cost-effective way to reduce the BoD. Despite the relatively high level of food hygiene achieved in Finland, up to thousands of foodborne infections occur every year, and food contaminants increase the BoD on consumers. Of the biological food hazards, Listeria caused the largest BoD, about 670 DALYs annually. Of the chemical hazards, lead caused the largest BoD, about 570 DALYs annually. Most of the control costs are borne by food businesses. Therefore, the scenarios that most affect businesses also have the greatest financial impact. This publication is part of the implementation of the Government Plan for Analysis, Assessment and ...