Global Commission on Pollution, Health and Development

Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary Environmental pollution is the single largest cause of disease and death in the developing world. Data from the World Health Organization and others indicate that in 2012 exposures to polluted soil, water and air contributed to an estimated 8.9 million deaths worldwide. Despite the tremendous impacts on human health and the economy, pollution has been undercounted and insufficiently addressed in national policies and international development agendas. The Global Commission on Pollution, Health and Development is an initiative of The Lancet, the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Commission is coordinated through the offices of the New York-based not-for-profit organization Pure Earth, which is the Secretariat of GAHP. The Commission comprises some the world's most influential leaders, researchers and practitioners in the fields of pollution management, environmental health and sustainable development. The Commission was created to reduce health risks from air, soil and water pollution in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by calculating and communicating the extraordinary health and economic costs of pollution globally, providing actionable solutions to policy-makers and dispelling the myth of pollution's inevitability. The Commission Report will be published in The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious and widely read medical journals, in December 2016. The two-day Commission Conference will be chaired by Dr. Philip Landrigan, Dean of Global Health at Mt. Sinai, and Richard Fuller, President of Pure Earth. All 36 Commissioners will be invited along with 40 stakeholders from related fields. The conference's five sessions include: 1) health impacts from pollution in LMICs, moderated by Dr. Landrigan; 2) economic impacts from LMICs, moderated by Dr. Maureen Cropper, chair of the economics department at the University of Maryland; 3) pollution and environmental justice, moderated by Karti Sandilya, former U.S. Resident Director of the Asian Development Bank; 4) successful, affordable pollution control strategies and solutions, moderated by Richard Fuller; and 5) strategies to increase public awareness of environmental health, the impacts of pollution and the recommendations, moderated by Angela Bernhardt, Executive Director of Communications at Pure Earth.