Environmental Health Policy Boonam Shin Director General International Cooperation Office Ministry of Environment Republic of Korea

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Environmental Health Policy Boonam Shin
Director General International Cooperation
Office Ministry of EnvironmentRepublic of Korea

• 2007.8.8

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Contents
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1.Paradigm Shift Background

• Rapid economic growth high population density
• Environmental burden use of chemicals have
  increased exceeding environmental capacity
• Public awareness on environmental health issues
• LOHAS Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability
• Better understanding on env.-health relationship
• Asthma, atopic dermatitis, PM-related respiratory
  diseases, etc.

New strategy should be developed
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1.Paradigm shift Environmental Health
Medium-based
Receptor-based

• Traditional approach
• command and control
• Media of concern
• Air, water, soil, etc
• Limits
• - Environmental capacity
• Relevance to human/eco health

• New approach
• Exposure and Effects
• Receptors of concern
• - Human and Ecosystem
• Tools
• Risk Assessment
• Surveillance of environmentally
• related diseases

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1.Paradigm Shift Trends of Environmental Health
related Projects
1980s
1990s
2000s

• Risk assessment
• system for envt
• pollutants (9800)
• Occurrence of EDCs
• their impact on ecosys.
• (9908)
• Risk-assessment
• strategy on hazardous
• chemicals (02 )

• Symptoms similar to Cd poisoning
• (Ulsan, 85)
• Noise-induced health symptoms (Kimpo airport
  area, 89)

• Phenol-release
• accident (Nakdong-
• river, 93)
• Glass-fiber exposure
• (Incheon, 95)

Strategic approach
Case by case
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1.Paradigm Shift Roadmap of Environmental
Health Policies in Korea

• 2004 Environmental Health Policy Division newly
  established in MOE
• 2005 Environmental Health policies reported to
  the President
• One of the 4 major objectives in Environment
• Prepared the 10-yr National EH Action Plan
  (06-15)
• 2006 Adopted implemented Environmental Health
  Action Plan
• Declared the First Year of Environmental Health
  (Feb.)
• Opened National Center for Environmental Health
  (Feb.)
• Established a forum on Environmental Health
  involving all relevant stakeholders (April)

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1.Paradigm ShiftForum on Environmental Health
Policy

• 150 Participants from academia, government,
  research institutes, media, and NGOs
• Biweekly meetings
• Areas being/to be discussed
• Environment Law
• Linkage between media-control policies and EH
  policies
• Environmental Health Index
• Promoting RD and training
• Population at risk
• Network among experts
• Risk communication

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2.Major EH Plans (1)

• Building foundation for effective EH measures
• Legal framework
• Preparing enactment of Environmental Health Act
• Incorporating Health Impact Assessment into EIA
• Imposing Environmental disease burden on
  polluters
• Research Capacity Building
• Environmental health research centers at national
  and local community levels
• Supporting research funds for developing
  Environmental health-related technologies

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2.Major EH Plans (2)

• Minimizing population at risk
• Exposure assessment Risk assessment of various
  environmental hazards
• Providing media-integrated environmental
  standards
• Surveillance, Monitoring, and Management of
  Environmentally-related diseases
• Investigating linkage between pollutants and
  disease
• Introducing monitoring/early-warning systems (eg.
  O3, DSS)
• Implementing Supporting System for public
  suffering from environmentally-related disease

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3.Projects Environmentallyrelated disease
surveillance

• Health assessment for contaminated sites
• Health assessment for residents in abandoned mine
  areas, industrial complex areas
• Abandoned mine areas 26 sites (69 sites/year)
• Industrial complex areas
• Six sites for 1520 years
• Four cohort studies Ulsan (since 2003),
  Sihwa/Banwol (since 2005), Pohang (since 2006),
  Gwangyang (since 2006)

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3.Projects Plan for Children

• Security of children's activity areas such as
  playgrounds, class rooms, etc.
• Survey and research of hazardous substance
  exposure
• Health protection from childrens goods
• Survey hazardous substance exposure
• Introduce enterprise's voluntary hazardous
  substance reduction program
• Environmental health education and public
  information for children
• Introduce classified notification system at
  childrens level
• Make guidelines for environmental health
  protection

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3.Projects Environmentallyrelated disease
surveillance for Children

• Environmental health status surveillance for
  children in cities, industrial complexes, and
  rural areas
• Population a total of 2,700 children (lt10 years
  old)
• Period 6-year (since 2004)
• Exposure
• Environmental monitoring data of typical air
  pollutants (PM10, O3, NO2, SO2)
• Environmental biological monitoring for VOCs
  heavy metals
• Outcomes
• Environmentally-related diseases (eg. Asthma,
  atopic dermatitis, etc.)
• Autism, delayed growth, etc

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3.Projects MOE MOHW Coordination

• National Assessment of Background Level of
  Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (2005)
• MOE-CDC (Ministry of Health and Welfare) Contract
  
• Performed as part of National Survey on Health
  and Nutritional Status
• Performed by CDC, Ministry of Health and Welfare
• Every three years
• Levels of Lead, Mercury, and Cadmium in blood
• 2,000 individuals (gt 20 years old)
• 200,000 this year
• Will be expanded to POPs

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4.Direction

• Enforcing Environmental Health Act
• Starting Media-Integrated Risk Assessment, Health
  Impact Assessment, etc.
• Imposing Environmental disease burden on
  polluters
• Making detailed policies with linkages between
  Environment and Health
• Researching the linkages at the Environmental
  health center (06) and the Research Center on
  Environmentally-related disease (07)
• Innovating Environmental Policy for receptors

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4.Direction

• Active roles in international cooperation for
  addressing Environmental health issues, esp. in
  Asia-Pacific
• Hosting the Conference of Environment Health
  in Asia (May.7, 2007)
• Topics Air, Water quality, Waste, Hazardous
  chemicals, Climate change, Environmental health
  emergency, etc
• Scientific recommendations will be developed to
  be presented at the Ministers Forum
• Active role at "The First Asian Environment and
  Health Ministers Meeting" ( Thailand, Bangkok,
  August, 2007)
• Participating countries the ASEAN (10
  countries) Korea, Japan, China and Mongolia

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4.Direction

• Contribute to solving the Environmental health
  problems our Region is suffering
• Policy/System on Air, Water quality, Waste,
  Hazardous chemicals, etc.
• ODA fund-raising
• Monitoring situations in each country and
  conducting a feasibility study on each field
• Training and Sending human resources
• Annual Ministerial Meeting, etc.

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Thank You !