UAE to develop strategy for environmental health

The project goals are to identify priority health threats caused by environmental factors in the UAE, estimate the burden of disease caused by these factors, identify mitigation strategies and strengthen the capacity of the UAE government in this arena.

The kick-off workshop for the project, which was organized by EAD, aims to provide an opportunity for stakeholders concerned with environment and health issues to learn about the project, share their information and thoughts and plan for their own future engagement over the project's duration.

During the workshop a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by EAD and the University Of North Carolina School Of Public Health to start implementing this project.

H. E. Majid Al Mansouri, EAD Secretary General, said that developing a strategy for environmental health is an essential tool to support policy-making, allowing priorities to be set on the basis of evidence, enhancing access to information and facilitating communication with the public.

Al Mansouri noted that recently the Abu Dhabi Executive Council has approved this project and its allocated budget, which come inline with the UAE government current priority policies.

He added, "To carry out this project, the EAD and its national partners and WHO, selected a team of specialists in environmental sciences and public health led by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC), which houses the top-ranked public school for public health in the United States."

UNC is also partnering with UAE University's Department of Community Medicine and the RAND Corporation, a global public policy research institution.

Al Mansouri added that, "The research team will conduct technical analyses to assess and prioritize environmental health risks, model environmental exposures and estimate the burden of disease caused by the most important environmental risk factors in the country."

"Examples of key risk factors include emissions of pollutants to the outdoor air, waste discharges to coastal waters, leaching of hazardous wastes and agricultural chemicals into groundwater and degradation of indoor air quality due to releases from furnishings, household chemicals and ventilation systems," Al Mansouri noted.

He said that the active participation of stakeholders in the UAE who are concerned with environmental health issues is vital to the success of this project. He noted that the research team will engage key UAE organizations and citizens in the development of assumptions and collection of data needed to model environmental health risks.

In addition, stakeholders will participate in formal, structured exercises to rank environmental health risks and set priorities for mitigation measures, based on the results of the team's analyses.

The research team also will involve individual UAE households in an epidemiologic study of indoor air quality and health. The participatory nature of the project design ensures that policy recommendations resulting from this work will reflect the local knowledge and values of the UAE.

Principal investigator, Jacqueline MacDonald, PhD, UNC assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering said, "In the past 40 years, UAE has gone from a small economy to a major industrial nation. While all the developments have brought some vast improvements in public health, it's also brought some concerns about risks due to environmental hazards that come with an industrialized economy."

MacDonald, who will lead the research team of the international specialists in environmental sciences and public health from UNC, RAND Corporation and United Arab Emirates University, said, "The government leaders in the U.A.E. are being proactive and forward-thinking by analyzing the environment now, before serious health impacts emerge. We're hoping to find ways to help them minimize damage to the health of the people in the U.A.E. and protect the environment."

"The research team will work with key organizations and citizens to collect data about the nation's current environmental health risks. Based on scientific assessments, that will determine the distribution of environmental hazards, the team will help United Arab Emirates leaders set priorities and develop policies for mitigating the health risks to people in the country," she added.