27 May 2016, GENEVA--Delegates at the World Health Assembly have agreed resolutions and decisions on air pollution, chemicals, the health workforce and childhood obesity.
Air pollution
Delegates welcomed a new road map for responding to the adverse health effects of air pollution. Every year, 4.3 million deaths occur from exposure to indoor air pollution and 3.7 million deaths are attributable to outdoor air pollution. The road map outlines actions to be taken between 2016 and 2019, and is organized into four categories.
It sets out to expand the knowledge base, by building and disseminating global evidence and knowledge impacts of air pollution of health and the effectiveness of interventions and policies to address it. The road map also aims to enhance systems to monitor and report on health trends and progress towards the air pollution-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. It focuses on leveraging health sector leadership and coordinated action at all levels – local, national, regional and global – to raise awareness of air pollution. Lastly, it will enhance the health sector’s capacity to address the adverse health effects from air pollution through training, guidelines and national action plans.
Chemicals
The Health Assembly also approved a resolution on the health sector’s role in the sound management of chemicals. Chemicals contribute significantly to the global economy, living standards and health, but poor management also contributes significantly to the global burden of disease and death, particularly in developing countries. Worldwide, 1.3 million lives are lost every year due to exposures to chemicals, such as lead and pesticides.
Delegates reconfirmed their commitment to ensuring chemicals are used and produced in ways that minimize significant adverse effects on human health and the environment by 2020. The resolution urges Member States to strengthen international cooperation, through transferring expertise, technologies and scientific data, as well as exchanging good practices to manage chemicals and waste.
The resolution asks the WHO Secretariat to develop and to present to the Seventieth World Health Assembly a road map outlining concrete actions to enhance the health sector engagement towards meeting the 2020 goal and associated targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also requests the Secretariat to develop a report on the impacts of waste on health and actions the health sector could take to protect it.
Health Workforce
Delegates agreed today to adopt the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, which aims to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by ensuring equitable access to health workers in every country. Today’s resolution calls on countries to take steps to strengthen their health workforces, including actively forecasting gaps between needs for and supply of health workers, collecting and reporting better data, and ensuring adequate funding for the health workforce.
Population growth, ageing societies, and changing disease patterns are expected to drive greater demand for well-trained health workers in the next 15 years. The global economy is projected to create around 40 million new health sector jobs by 2030; mostly in middle- and high-income countries. But despite that anticipated growth, there will be a projected shortage of 18 million health workers needed to achieve the SDGs in low- and lower-middle income countries, fuelled in part by labour mobility, both within and between nations.
Ending Childhood Obesity
Delegates considered the report of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity which sets out the approaches and combinations of interventions that are likely to be most effective in tackling childhood and adolescent obesity in different contexts around the world. In 2014, an estimated 41 million children under 5 years of age were affected by overweight or obesity, and 48% of these lived in Asia and 25% in Africa. Under-nutrition in early childhood places children at an especially high risk of developing obesity later in life when food and physical activity patterns change.
Member States welcomed the six recommendations detailed in the Commission’s report. These include strategies to tackle environmental norms that foster obesity, reduce the risk of obesity through the life-course and treat children who are already obese to improve their current and future health. The Health Assembly calls on the WHO Secretariat to develop an implementation plan to guide further action, in consultation with Member States, and invited stakeholders to work towards implementation of the actions. The Assembly also recommended Member States develop national responses to end childhood and adolescent obesity, in line with the report’s recommendations.
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