Cleaning up the air in Europe's schools
By David Landry
Many of our biggest environmental problems stem from collections of molecules that are truly microscopic, anywhere from 10 nanometres to 100 micrometres in diameter.
These threats, known as 'particulate matter,' comprise an aspect of pollution that presents a major health risk to the general population, but children especially. But particulate matter is also one of the fronts on which gains are being made by environmental concerns, which is genuine cause for optimism.
The World eaHealth Organization (WHO) defines particulate matter as "any air pollutant consisting of a mixture of particles that can be solid, liquid or both, is suspended in the air, and represents a complex mixture of organic and inorganic substances."
Major components of particulate matter include sulphates, nitrates, ammonia, sodium chloride, carbon, mineral dust and water.
While particulate matter is emitted from natural sources such as mineral dust, sea salt, forest fires and volcanic activity, industrial activity and internal combustion engines produce massive amounts of these aerosols. Conservative estimates attribute 10 percent of all atmospheric aerosol particles to human activity.
Particulate matter has been identified as a serious health hazard, with long- and short-term effects, at least since 1994 and the WHO's Environmental Health Action Plan for Europe.
One recent study (WHO fact sheet EURO/04/05: 'Particulate matter air pollution: How it harms health') summarised a data assessment undertaken in 2004 by the WHO's European Centre for Environment and Health in 2004, stating that particulate matter, among other hazards, increases the risk of respiratory death in infants under one year of age, and seriously increases deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and lung cancer.
Due to factors ranging from smaller body size to greater amounts of time spent outdoors, children risk the greatest exposure to particulate matter, and are most likely to suffer anything from short-term to long-term respiratory effects — even brain damage.
Particulate matter is such a high-level concern that it emerged as 'Regional Priority Goal 3' of the Children's Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE), which was signed by 52 countries during the WHO Europe's Fourth Environment and Health Ministerial Conference, held in Budapest in 2004.
In February, representatives from 52 European countries met in Brussels to launch a review action plan (EED 28/06/04). The WHO initiative addresses environmental threats to child health in four priority areas: water, air, chemicals and injuries.
The REC project 'Indoor Air Quality in European Schools: Preventing and reducing respiratory diseases' seeks to directly address CEHAPE Regional Priority Goal 3. The project involves REC offices in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovakia, together with related organisations in these countries, and in Austria, Italy, and Norway.
The project period is 2005-09, and final findings will be presented in 2009 at the Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, to be held in Italy.
Working under the Italian Health Ministry's 'Guidelines for the Safety and Promotion of Health Indoors,' published in November 2001 in the Official Journal of Environment and Health, the project began as a pilot programme in Hungary.
In 2004, REC Hungary employed the Italian model for improving indoor air quality in schools. The pilot training programme was developed by several teachers from Hungary, together with Italian and Hungarian medical consultants.
According to the 2006-07 programme itinerary, the project was kicked off in eight countries, as was requisite planning and training courses based on the Italian-Hungarian concept. The all-important measurement of indoor air pollutants within schools started in November 2006, and will continue through March 2007. By the end of the year, a questionnaire will be distributed in selected schools for measuring the representative health 100 children per country, followed by collection and analysis of the results.
The programme will continue next year, and the REC hopes that the Hungarian-Italian model will be propagated throughout the eight participating countries.
Progress is steadily being made in this area of environmental improvement. The early success of the REC's 'Indoor Air Quality in European Schools' project is but one outcome of CEHAPE Regional Priority Goal 3. The latest large-scale defining of goals in particulate matter-related, health-risk management was the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution, part of the EU's Sixth Environmental Action Programme.
Past projects took on new directions under an EC directive issued in September 2005, which promised to "cut the annual number of premature deaths from air pollution-related diseases by almost 40 percent from the 2000 level."
The good news is that particulate matter emissions actually do seem to be on the wane. The "ambitious" goals set in the Thematic Strategy will, by present calculations, be reached. Meanwhile, particulate pollution from the troublesome internal combustion engine will be diminished somewhat on the continent, as the European Union recently introduced a more stringent standard of 0.025 grams per kilometer (0.04 grams per mile) in particulate emissions from light-duty vehicles.
While we're still some — perhaps, many — years away from running industrial machinery at sufficiently clean levels, we can eventually win the battle on the microscopic level of particulate matter; and this should make us, and our little ones, breathe easier.
