scholarly journals Children’s Environmental Health: A Systems Approach for Anticipating Impacts from Chemicals

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (22) ◽  
pp. 8337
Author(s):  
Elaine A. Cohen Hubal ◽  
David M. Reif ◽  
Rachel Slover ◽  
Ashley Mullikin ◽  
John C. Little
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health ◽  
Chemical Management ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Children’S Environmental Health

Increasing numbers of chemicals are on the market and present in consumer products. Emerging evidence on the relationship between environmental contributions and prevalent diseases suggests associations between early-life exposure to manufactured chemicals and a wide range of children’s health outcomes. Using current assessment methodologies, public health and chemical management decisionmakers face challenges in evaluating and anticipating the potential impacts of exposure to chemicals on children’s health in the broader context of their physical (built and natural) and social environments. Here, we consider a systems approach to address the complexity of children’s environmental health and the role of exposure to chemicals during early life, in the context of nonchemical stressors, on health outcomes. By advancing the tools for integrating this more complex information, the scope of considerations that support chemical management decisions can be extended to include holistic impacts on children’s health.

The EPA’s Commitment to Children’s Environmental Health: History and Current Challenges

2022 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-134
Author(s):  
Marianne Sullivan ◽  
Leif Fredrickson ◽  
Chris Sellers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Advisory Committee ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Health Protection ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Children’S Environmental Health

Children’s environmental health (CEH) has a 25-year history at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), during which the agency has advanced CEH through research, policy, and programs that address children’s special vulnerability to environmental harm. However, the Trump administration took many actions that weakened efforts to improve CEH. The actions included downgrading or ignoring CEH concerns in decision-making, defunding research, sidelining the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, and rescinding regulations that were written in part to protect children. To improve CEH, federal environmental statutes should be reviewed to ensure they are sufficiently protective. The administrator should ensure the EPA’s children’s health agenda encompasses the most important current challenges and that there is accountability for improvement. Guidance documents should be reviewed and updated to be protective of CEH and the federal lead strategy refocused on primary prevention. The Office of Children’s Health Protection’s historically low funding and staffing should be remedied. Finally, the EPA should update CEH data systems, reinvigorate the role of the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, and restore funding for CEH research that is aligned with environmental justice and regulatory decision-making needs. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(1):124–134. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306537 )

Thailand: country report on children’s environmental health

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
Siriwan Chandanachulaka
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Health ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Country Report ◽  
Health Networks ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Children’S Environmental Health ◽  
Mortality Ratio

AbstractThailand is the home of 66.4 million people of which 17.21% are children aged 0–14 years. The total population of children has decreased from 20.23% in 2009 to 17.21% in 2018. The mortality ratio of infants and children under 5 years of age has also steadily decreased between 2008 and 2017. Urbanization, globalization, and industrialization appear to be the main contributors to the transition from infectious to chronic non-communicable diseases. The main types of environmental exposure to children are water, sanitation and hygiene, air pollution from traffic in inner cities, chemical hazards from pesticides which result from agricultural activities in countryside areas, heavy metal contaminants such as lead and arsenic from anthropogenic activities, e.g. from industrial zones, mining, electronic appliance waste, and ongoing climate change. It is concluded that economic development and rapid urbanization in Thailand have resulted in environmental degradation and pose a risk to children’s health. Future development and implementation of measures to improve children’s environmental health (CEH) in the country are needed. Some examples include research specific to environmental threats to children’s health; international environmental health networks to share experience and expertise; and solutions to solve the problems.

scholarly journals What Do Childcare Providers Know about Environmental Influences on Children’s Health? Implications for Environmental Health Literacy Efforts

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 5489
Author(s):  
Brenda D. Koester ◽  
Stephanie Sloane ◽  
Elinor M. Fujimoto ◽  
Barbara H. Fiese ◽  
Leona Yi-Fan Su
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Environmental Influences ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
The United States ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Environmental Health Literacy ◽  
Childcare Providers

Children are uniquely vulnerable to toxicant exposures in their environment, which can have long-lasting impacts on their health. Childcare providers are an important population to target for environmental health literacy, as most children in the United States under five years of age spend a significant number of waking hours in non-parental care. There is an increasing body of evidence that children are exposed to toxicants in the childcare environment, and yet little is known about what childcare providers know about environmental influences on the health of children in their care. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 home- and center-based Illinois childcare providers to better understand their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as they relate to environmental influences on children’s health. We found that the majority of providers had a low level of understanding of potential sources of exposure in the childcare environment, and they did not feel that environmental exposures posed a significant risk to children. Future efforts to increase environmental health literacy should focus on raising awareness and knowledge of environmental health issues for childcare providers before addressing ways that providers can reduce or prevent toxicant exposures to children in their care.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of pretend medical play in improving children’s health outcomes and well-being: a systematic review

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. e041506
Author(s):  
Aneesa Abdul Rashid ◽  
Ai Theng Cheong ◽  
Ranita Hisham ◽  
Nurainul Hana Shamsuddin ◽  
Dalila Roslan
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Healthcare Setting ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Children's Health ◽  
Children’S Health ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Case Control Studies ◽  
Anxiety Levels

BackgroundThe healthcare setting is stressful for many people, especially children. Efforts are needed to mitigate children’s healthcare-related anxiety. Medical play using the Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) concept can expose children to healthcare settings and help them develop positive experiences in these settings. In this role-playing game, children bring their soft toys and act as parents to the ‘sick’ teddies in a pretend hospital or clinic play setting. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of the TBH in improving children’s health outcomes and well-being.MethodsWe searched the reference lists of included studies from four electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and Google Scholar) from inception until November 2020. We included pre-post, quasiexperimental and case–control studies, as well as randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that discussed medical play using the TBH concept as an intervention. Studies that involved sick patients and used interventions unlike the TBH were excluded. We assessed the quality of the included studies using the Cochrane Collaboration’s ‘Risk of bias’ tool.ResultsTen studies were included in this systematic review. Five specifically investigated the TBH method, while the others involved the same concept of medical play. Only three studies were RCTs. All of the studies report more than one outcome—mostly positive outcomes. Two report lower anxiety levels after intervention. Two found better healthcare knowledge, with one reporting increased feelings of happiness regarding visiting a doctor. Two studies found no change in anxiety or feelings, while another two found increased levels of fear and lowered mood after the medical play (which involved real medical equipment).ConclusionsThe practice of TBH has mostly positive outcomes, with lower anxiety levels and improved healthcare knowledge. Its effectiveness should be verified in future studies using a more robust methodology.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42019106355.

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