Project Details

Following the declaration of the Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health held in Parma, Italy, in 2010, the WHO Regional Office for Europe published the report "Environmental health inequalities in Europe" in 2012. This assessment report indicated for the first time that environmental health inequalities exist in all subregions and in all countries of the WHO European Region. Currently, an international team of experts works in collaboration with the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health on an update of this report which will be published in 2019.

The research team of the Department of Social Epidemiology, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, as part of this international team, is conducting four systematic reviews on social inequalities in exposure to environmental resources (green and blue space), environmental noise, outdoor air pollution (in cooperation with Staffordshire University, UK), and environmental chemicals, respectively. These reviews are focused on the WHO European region and will contribute substantially as background information to the update of the WHO report on environmental health inequalities in Europe. Furthermore, the research team of the Department of Social Epidemiology wrote the chapter on social inequalities in self-reported noise annoyance for the update of the report.

Since 2009, Gabriele Bolte contributes as an invited expert to the work of the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health on environmental health inequalities. At the WHO expert meeting 2018, the methodology of the evidence review, newly developed equity indicators, and a resource package on environmental health equity have been discussed. The next expert meeting will take place in April 2019 to finalise the update of the report on environmental health inequalities in Europe.

Protocols of these four systematic reviews have been published 2018 in the PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews:

-       social inequalities in environmental resources:
http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?ID=CRD42018099460

-       social inequalities in environmental noise exposure: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?ID=CRD42018099466

-       social inequalities in exposure to ambient (outdoor) air pollution:
http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?ID=CRD42018099468

-       social inequalities in exposure to environmental chemicals:
http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?ID=CRD42018099484