The World Health Organization (WHO) selects academic institutions as collaborating centres to support its specialized work. The international group of collaborating centres analyzes data, assesses academic findings, and develops internationally valid statements and policy recommendations together with the WHO.

Professor Gabriele Bolte, who advises the WHO with her team at the Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research at the University of Bremen, emphasized: "As a WHO Collaborating Centre, we can contribute our expertise on social inequalities in environment and health to international health reporting, academic statements, and political recommendations for action on environment-related health promotion. Continuous monitoring is an important prerequisite for evaluating interventions to improve environmental quality in relation to social inequalities." With the redesignation, the successful work can be continued for another four years.

The president of the University of Bremen, Professor Jutta Günther commented: "The redesignation by the WHO shows that we at the University of Bremen are conducting relevant research and teaching on a very important topic. The connection between environmental factors and the health of the population is obvious, as we can already see now with the effects of climate change. The risks and impacts are unevenly distributed around the world in this regard. Therefore, these are also social issues that we as a society absolutely need to address. Science is making an important contribution to climate justice here."

Link between Environmental Impacts and Health

The activities of the WHO Collaborating Centre consist firstly of monitoring health-relevant environment-related inequalities in Europe and improving indicators for recording said inequalities. A second area of focus is the development of a concept for estimating the health effects of socially unequally distributed environmental stresses and resources.

A new area of focus is further training. The team from Bremen will develop training modules on environment-related health inequalities and their monitoring for WHO staff and political and administrative stakeholders in Europe.
The collaborating centre at IPP is producing a series of fact sheets on environmental health disparities. The first fact sheets centered on housing conditions, including aspects such as overcrowding, damp, thermal comfort, and access to basic services such as clean drinking water and sanitation. Additional fact sheets on social inequalities in noise pollution, air pollution, and energy poverty will be published this year.

At the Seventh Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, held in Budapest from July 5 to 7, 2023, the collaborating centre of the University of Bremen, together with the European Environment Agency, organized an event on social inequalities in environmental pollution in Europe, the current findings from monitoring, and their policy implications.

Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP)

Improving the health and well-being of the population is the central goal of the Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen. The IPP deals with issues in the fields of health promotion and prevention, epidemiological methods and research into the causes of disease, health and nursing care, and the professionalization of the health care professions. The Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen is one of the largest research institutes in this field in Germany.

Further Information:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/who-collaborating-centre-for-environmental-health-inequalities

Seventh Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Europe: https://www.who.int/europe/event/seventh-ministerial-conference-on-environment-and-health

https://www.ipp.uni-bremen.de/home/en/?

http://www.healthsciences.uni-bremen.de/en/home.html

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Bolte
Head of the Department of Social Epidemiology
Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP)
University of Bremen
Email: gabriele.bolteprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Phone: +49 421 218-68820