[The value of housing conditions and urban environment for the health].

Housing and urban environments represent the physical context for everyday life and have a significant impact on population health and well-being. Depending on the quality of housing and urban conditions, they can support or restrict the health of their residents through a variety of aspects such as air pollution, noise, thermal conditions, safety aspects and environmental contamination. Therefore, housing and urban conditions are important dimensions for environmental health and knowledge on the main risk factors and their associated health effects is needed to identify adequate interventions and measures in the home and urban environment. This paper summarizes the results of WHO work on the health relevance of housing and urban environments and describes the health impact of the major risks observed in human settlements.

[Summary of ongoing activities on environmental noise and health at the WHO regional office for Europe].

The environmental noise is an important public health issue, according to recent assessment of the burden of diseases among environmental health risk factors in order of importance the environmental noise occupies the second place after air pollution. The World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time published its public health recommendations for the environmental noise in 1999 in the "WHO Guidelines for Community Noise (1999)". These recommendations found their development in WHO Night Noise Guidelines for Europe" (2009). From then onward there have been published new important data on the impact of the environmental noise on the health, that stipulated the revision of existing guidelines. Furthermore, both in the European Union (EU) Directive 2002/49/ EC and the Parma Declaration from 2010 there was pointed out the importance of renewal environmental noise recommendations. Responding to appearing interrogation, WHO Regional Office for Europe has recently initiated the process of the elaboration of new guiding principles known as "WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region". The Guidelines will include a systematic review of most critical or important health consequences and also concentrate on health benefits of measures for the reducing noise levels. The Guidelines will consider noise coming from various noise sources such as aircraft, railroad, personal electronic devices and wind turbines. The Guidelines will also consider the particularity of such accommodations as residences, hospitals, and educational facilities. The work in the mentioned spheres is ongoing and the revised Guidelines are expected to be published in mid-2015. The Guidelines will provide up-to-date information on the health risks related to the environmental noise and evidence-based recommendations in order to support for WHO Member States in their efforts to prevent of the excessive noise and the struggle with their negative impact.

[The main conclusions about the medical aspects of air pollution: the projects REVIHAAP and HRAPIE WHO/EC].

For the time present the World Health Organization (WHO) is coordinating two major international projects aimed to provide the European Union (EU) with science-based information on health aspects of air pollution for a comprehensive analysis of EU policy in the field of air quality, scheduled for 2013. The information provided is structured in the form of answers to 26 policy-forming key questions, defined by the European Commission (EC). The questions cover the both general aspects that are important for air quality management, and also specific topics related to the health effects of certain air pollutants. Texts of the answers to the questions were provided on requests of large group of invited experts from leading specialized institutions around the world. First stages of the overview of existing data have shown that in recent years there has been published a significant amount of information proving adverse health effects of suspended particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in an amount, which typically occurs in the air in Europe. These new data confirm the findings reported in renewed in 2005 WHO Guidelines for Air Quality (GAQ), and show that the negative health effects in some cases may take place at concentrations of aeropollutants in the air below mentioned in the GAQ in 2005. In the review there are presented the scientific arguments in favor of adoption of strong measures to improvement air quality and reduction of the burden of diseases associated with air pollution in Europe. The conclusions formulated within a framework of these projects, are equally referred to all Member States and can become a basis for the development and implementation of effective strategies to reduce air pollution and reduction of its negative impact on the health of the population.

A user-friendly tool to assess combined exposures to indoor air pollutants in public spaces of children.

This manuscript describes the methodology for and early experience in the application of a screening tool to assess health risks from combined exposure to indoor air pollutants in public settings for children such as schools, kindergartens and day-care centres. The user-friendly tool incorporates tiers modified from those of the World Health Organization (WHO) framework for risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals and includes a spreadsheet for risk calculation as well as a supporting toxicological database of guidance values and points of departure (PODs) for inhalation for selected effects. Supporting resources on exposure assessment include a screening questionnaire to identify optimum sampling strategies and standardized analytical methods. The approach to assessment of combined exposure within the screening tool, including decision rules, assumptions and limitations/uncertainties is addressed, as is the nature of health-effects and reference/toxicity values prioritized for inclusion in the associated toxicological database. Results of early experience in application illustrate how the screening tool contributes as an important component in strategies to assess and manage indoor air pollution in public settings for children.