30% of Europe's child deaths are environment related
The results come from the world's first "audit" of environment-related childhood deaths over an entire geographic region. It reveals that 100,000 young Europeans die every year from exposure to pollution or unsafe living conditions.
The availability of hard data will now enable European countries to prioritise countermeasures, such as providing clean drinking water. European governments will agree priorities for action at a meeting in Budapest, Hungary, starting on 22 June.
The researchers, led by Giorgio Tamburlini of the Institute for Child Health in Trieste, Italy, found that accidents were the single biggest "environmental" killer, accounting for three quarters of the 100,000 annual deaths. In Europe?s poorest countries, pneumonia caused by indoor air pollution and diarrhoea caused by lack of sanitation and clean water, were also major causes of death.
This article continues in THE NEW SCIENTIST
30% din decesele infantile din Europa sunt legate de mediu - 30% of Europe's child deaths are environment related - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate