tailieunhanh - Environmental Policy and Children’s Health

Horizontal integration. The concept of horizontal integration recognizes the inter- dependence of physical, mental, developmental, and oral health services; the inef- ficiencies that result when programs with common outcomes goals are operated independently in different sectors; and the importance of cross-sector service de- livery pathways and innovative delivery platforms to create more-functional con- tinuums of care. A high-performing child health system will require productive partnerships across medical, public health, and civic (education and social ser- vice) sectors, as well as innovative service-delivery platforms such as comprehen- sive school readiness centers that can serve as hubs of integrated service delivery. Longitudinal integration. The concept of longitudinal integration recognizes that interactions among. | 34 Environmental Policy and Children s Health Philip J. Landrigan Joy E. Carlson Abstract Philip J. Landrigan . is a professor of pediatrics and chair of the Department of Community Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Joy E Carlson is director of the Children s Environmental Health Network a national project dedicated to preventing the exposure of children to environmental hazards. Understanding the differences in the effects of environmental contamination on children and adults is an important part of environmental policymaking however unless environmental health policies reflect the differences between adults and children this knowledge will have little practical effect. The authors of this article consider how the unique vulnerabilities of children challenge environmental policymaking. First they review the biological differences between children and adults and then they critique the processes of risk assessment and risk management the principal tools currently used to form federal environmental policy. While these tools are useful in developing environmental health policy their implementation frequently fails to consider the unique vulnerabilities of children. In light of the potential to improve environmental policy for children the authors review both the actual and prospective contributions of educational and advocacy efforts in changing the ways policy addresses children s environmental health and discuss the interests of industries and the problems of environmental equity. Finally they present a new approach to environmental health policymaking which places children rather than individual toxicants and hazards at the center of the risk assessment and management process. Children today live in an environment that is vastly different from that of a generation or two ago. While exposures to some environmental hazards have decreased thanks to new regulations and increased vig-ilance 1 children are continually in contact with new chemicals