70 NGO representatives from 29 countries participated in an NGO strategy conference on 15-16 December 2003 in Brussels organised by EPHA and Eco-Forum. The event was linked to preparations for the Budapest conference on on Environment and Health in June 2004 and was hosted by the Belgian government and a grant from the WHO. A conference report will be available in the coming weeks.
Genon Jensen and many EPHA members participated in the European Commission’s Consultative Working Group on December 18-19 2003 to discuss the first phase of the environment and health strategy - a series of baseline reports summarising some of the issues being tackled by the nine technical working groups (ie monitoring programmes on endocrine disrupters, lead and PCBs/dioxins; respiratory diseases, childhood cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders; research and emerging issues and biomonitoring of children). See related article on EPHA website. The European Commission will also publish a Summary of the baseline reports on January 16, 2004.
Tamsin Rose participated in the EU Health Policy Forum meeting on 5 December 2003, a report of the meeting will be available shortly. The agenda, presentations and list of participants for the meeting can be found on the Forum page on European Commission website. Outcomes include the adoption of documents on health and social policy, mobility of health professionals. Threee ad-hoc working groups were established: health information, services of a general interest and responses on patient mobility.
Presentations
’EU role in health’ to a 1 day workshop run by the Royal College of Nurses in London to brainstorm on ideas for a campaign for the European Parliament Elections on 10 June 2004.
’EU role in health’ to the first meeting in Stockholm of a new EC law and health network being developed in the Nordic countries.
’The pros and cons of participating in EU programmes’ to a conference in Sofia organised for local NGOs by the Bulgarian government Download the presentation.
Many thanks to EPHA policy assistant Binal Nathwani who completed her 3 month placement at the EPHA Secretariat. Binal prepared two overview documents on Patient Mobility as well as the EPHA position paper on health and nutrition claims for food.
