Environmental Health Indicators: Framework and Methodologies
Author: David Briggs, Nene Centre for Research University College Northampton
Date: 1999
Abstract: There is an increasing need and demand for environmental health indicators, from agencies and practitioners to help support and monitor policy on environment and health at all levels - from the local to the international. Indicators are needed, for example: • to help monitor trends in the state of the environment, in order to identify potential risks to health; • to monitor trends in health, resulting from exposures to environmental risk factors, in order to guide policy; • to compare areas or countries in terms of their environmental health status, so as to help target action where it is most needed or to help allocate resources; • to monitor and assess the effects of policies or other interventions on environmental health; • to help raise awareness about environmental health issues across different stake-holder groups (including policy-makers, health practitioners, industry, the public, the media); • to help investigate potential links between environment and health (e.g. as part of epidemio-logical studies), as a basis for informing health interventions and policy. The development of good environmental health indicators is nevertheless challenging. To be effective, indicators must satisfy a number of different criteria. In order to meet the needs of their users, who are often not experts in the subject matter or the idiosyncracies of the data, they must provide a relevant and meaningful summary of the conditions of interest. In order to satisfy the wider community - including those who might wish to challenge the message they give - they must be transparent, testable and scientifically sound. If they are to detect variation or change in the world they describe, they must be sensitive to real changes in the conditions they measure, yet robust enough not to be swamped by noise in - or minor differences in the source of - the data used. If they are actually to be developed and used, they must be cost-effective to compile and apply.
Tags: Criteria for Indicator Selection, Environment, Environmental health, Framework, Health, Indicator planning, Indicator selection, Outcomes,
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Date: 1999
Abstract: There is an increasing need and demand for environmental health indicators, from agencies and practitioners to help support and monitor policy on environment and health at all levels - from the local to the international. Indicators are needed, for example: • to help monitor trends in the state of the environment, in order to identify potential risks to health; • to monitor trends in health, resulting from exposures to environmental risk factors, in order to guide policy; • to compare areas or countries in terms of their environmental health status, so as to help target action where it is most needed or to help allocate resources; • to monitor and assess the effects of policies or other interventions on environmental health; • to help raise awareness about environmental health issues across different stake-holder groups (including policy-makers, health practitioners, industry, the public, the media); • to help investigate potential links between environment and health (e.g. as part of epidemio-logical studies), as a basis for informing health interventions and policy. The development of good environmental health indicators is nevertheless challenging. To be effective, indicators must satisfy a number of different criteria. In order to meet the needs of their users, who are often not experts in the subject matter or the idiosyncracies of the data, they must provide a relevant and meaningful summary of the conditions of interest. In order to satisfy the wider community - including those who might wish to challenge the message they give - they must be transparent, testable and scientifically sound. If they are to detect variation or change in the world they describe, they must be sensitive to real changes in the conditions they measure, yet robust enough not to be swamped by noise in - or minor differences in the source of - the data used. If they are actually to be developed and used, they must be cost-effective to compile and apply.
Tags: Criteria for Indicator Selection, Environment, Environmental health, Framework, Health, Indicator planning, Indicator selection, Outcomes,
DOWNLOAD