Report of the second (extraordinary) meeting of the European Environment and Health Task Force (EHTF)

The European Environment and Health Task Force (EHTF) held its second (extraordinary) meeting in May/June 2012 at The Hague, Netherlands. The meeting’s purpose was to define indicators to measure implementation of Member States’ commitments under the Parma Declaration on Environment and Health. The Task Force achieved consensus that implementation of the Parma commitments is a higher priority, while monitoring should be a cost-effective means to support efficient implementation. It adopted a set of indicators, most of which rely on existing data. Two rounds of reporting via a policy survey would be conducted, in 2013 (before the Mid-term Review) and in 2015 (before the Sixth Ministerial Conference in 2016). The Task Force endorsed the proposed new indicators which would be assessed in a schools survey, and acknowledged WHO’s efforts to develop a harmonized approach to human biomonitoring (HBM). The feasibility of including HBM data in reporting in 2013 would be further investigated.