Environmental Health: Research for Policy

What knowledge are we missing about the way our surroundings influence our health? And what research is required to fill the holes in such knowledge? These questions were posed by the Netherlands’ State Secretary for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment when asking the Health Council to produce this report. Behind the questions was a wish to obtain the research data necessary to more effectively protect public health against harmful environmental factors and to allay unfounded concerns about environmental factors. The State Secretary was chiefly interested in the effects of physical factors, such as substances in the air, the water and the soil, ionising radiation, electromagnetic radiation and fields, and noise. Every one of these factors was referred to in the Action Plan Environmental Health: Implementing more powerful policy, presented to the Lower House of the Dutch parliament in 2002. The Action Plan Environmental Health also highlighted the importance of research into risk perception and risk communication.