Towards environmental health inequality reporting

Development of a core set of indicators for reporting and assessing environmental health inequalities in the WHO European Region.

Report of an expert group meeting Bonn, Germany, 25-26 October 2010

Abstract

International evidence reveals significant sociodemographic inequalities in exposure to and disease resulting from environmental conditions. Despite efforts by various actors, there are still few international data on environmental health inequalities while national data are scattered and often not comparable with those of other countries. With a view to assessing the magnitude of environmental health inequalities in the European Region, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, through its European Centre for Environment and Health (Bonn Office), is implementing a two-year project to develop a reporting tool for environmental health inequalities. To engage Member States in this project, an expert meeting was held on 25–26 October 2010 to review the compilation of available environmental health inequality data and to select indicators of environmental health inequality for common reporting. A core set of 14 indicators was selected by three working groups based on the availability, quality and consistency of data and its public health relevance. The selected indicators relate to inequalities in housing, injuries and environmental exposure. It was proposed that a “WHO European environmental health inequality report”, based on the core set of indicators, be developed in 2011 as the main work objective for the second year of the project.