Human health and well-being is definitely linked to environmental quality. Factors such as air pollution, chemicals and radiation have an impact on our health, and may cause diseases, even in some cases premature death.

Of course, human health concerns are one of the major drivers behind Community environmental legislation. New types of environment-related health risks are currently appearing, and scientists are more and more concerned about how climate change affects human health, due to the increasing temperatures, extreme weather conditions or to the spreading and propagation of infectious diseases.

New technologies, such as nanotechnologies, may cause risks to human health and the environment, even if these risks cannot be forecasted today. Therefore, objective, sound and well-balanced information and advice is essential for making policy decisions.

        Peter Pärt
          Advisor

The IES Task Force collects information about environment and human health relationships. Together with the European Environment Agency (EEA), the Task Force is working for the establishment of a European Environment and Health Information System, which is one of the priorities of the current EU Environment and Health Action Plan.
The aim is to structure, organize and make available environmental and human health information in a common system which can be used to understand environment and health relationships. Nanotechnologies also offer new approaches to improve environmental quality, in remediation, water purification and for efficient utilization of alternative energy sources.
For this reason, the Task Force and DG Environment are jointly developing a program on the environmental benefits of new and emerging technologies.