Children's environmental health Children are our future, numbering over 2.3 billion worldwide (aged 0-19) and representing boundless potential. Child survival and development hinge on basic needs to support life; among these, a safe, healthy and clean environment is fundamental. Children are exposed to serious health risks from environmental hazards. Over 40% of the global burden of disease attributed to environmental factors falls on children below five years of age, who account for only about 10% of the world's population. Environmental risk factors often act in concert, and their effects are exacerbated by adverse social and economic conditions, particularly conflict, poverty and malnutrition. There is new knowledge about the special susceptibility of children to environmental risks: action needs to be taken to allow them to grow up and develop in good health, and to contribute to economic and social development. Each year, at least three million children under the age of five die due to environment-related diseases.
Acute respiratory infections annually kill an estimated two million children under the age of five. As much as 60 percent of acute respiratory infections worldwide are related to environmental conditions.
Diarrhoeal diseases claim the lives of nearly two million children every year. Eighty to 90 percent of these diarrhoea cases are related to environmental conditions, in particular, contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.
Nearly one million children under the age of five died of malaria in 1998. Up to 90 percent of malaria cases are attributed to environmental factors Our work on children's environmental health is carried out in the following activity areas: National profiles
CEH indicators
Capacity building
Guidelines, good practice and tools
Research In addition, this web site provides access to a large number of publications, statistics, indicators, fact sheets on children's environmental health, as well as links to other related WHO and non-WHO sites.
Die Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse (AOK) startet 2007 die Kampagne „Gesunde Kinder – gesunde Zukunft“. Nach AOK-Angaben ist die allgemeine körperliche Fitness von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland in den letzten zehn Jahren um zehn Prozent zurückgegangen. Eine Informationsbroschüre des Bundesgesundheitsministeriums beschreibt beispielsweise, dass viele Jugendliche nur an an zwei Tagen in der Woche körperlich aktiv sind. Die Freude an der Bewegung würde demnach im Teenager-Alter deutlich abnehmen. Die AOK veranstaltet aus diesem Anlass im kommenden Jahr die Aktion „Gesunde Kinder – gesunde Zukunft“. 

Als entscheidend für den Erfolg aktiver Gesundheitsprävention sieht die AOK die Unterstützung und Zusammenarbeit so genannter regionaler Knoten an. Hier werden – so die AOK – „Präventionsprojekte von Krankenkassen und Kommunen in Kindergärten und Schulen“ koordiniert. Anlässlich des Kongresses „Armut und Gesundheit“ hatte der Vorstandsvorsitzende des AOK-Bundesverbandes Dr. Hans Jürgen Ahrens am 1. Dezember 2006 die Gesundheitsreform kritisiert. Diese mache es schwerer, „die nötigen Mittel für die Gesundheitsförderung von sozial Benachteiligten zur Verfügung zu stellen“. Die Finanzierung der „regionalen Knoten“ zur Koordinierung von Präventionsprojekten sei daher zu stärken.