Professor Dr. HRH Princess Chulabhorn

1. Regional Ministerial Forum on Environment and Health in South East Asian and East Asian Countries Professor Dr. HRH Princess Chulabhorn Chulabhorn Research Institute, Thailand

2. World Health Organization (WHO) • 13 million deaths worldwide could be prevented every year by making our environments healthier. • One of the most vulnerable to unhealthy environments is children. • Children under the age of five: 1/3 of all disease is caused by the environmental factors.

3. Childhood Death • Better environmental management could prevent: • 40% of deaths from malaria, • 41% of deaths from lower respiratory infections, and • 94% of deaths from diarrhoeal disease

4. Five of the eight Millennium Development Goals have direct relevance to environment and health. • Less hunger, poverty, disease burden, • Greater survival prospects for children, • Less risks for the vulnerable groups, including women, children and the elderly, and • A safer and sustaining environment that provides the natural resources for growth and prosperity for current and future generations.

6. Some of the highlights of issues • Climate change and its impacts on the environment and on health; • Air pollution, including indoor and outdoor air, as well as haze, dust storms and atmospheric brown clouds, and their impacts on human health; • The need for continued surveillance of and research pertaining to infectious diseases, including avian influenza; • The need for better management and coordination in quality control of water supply systems to address emerging issues;

7. Some of the highlights of issues • The need for awareness education and capacity building to address the issue of invasive alien species; • The need for employment of appropriate techniques in the management of municipal and health-care wastes, in view of potential toxic and infectious impacts; • The importance of research into the etiology of disease with a view to determining effective preventive measures.

8. Chulabhorn Graduate Institute (CGI): International GraduatePrograms: • Chemical Biology • Environmental Toxicology • Applied Biological Sciences: Environment & Health • Inter-university program in Environmental Toxicology, Technology and Management(CGI / Mahidol University / AIT)

9. Research in the Area of Environmental Health The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001) • Of the 15 cities • in the world with the • highest levels of • particulate matter and • sulfur dioxide, 12 and 6, • respectively, are situated • in Asia.

10. Deaths from Urban Air Pollution (WHO, 2005) 800,000 deaths each year worldwide http://www.who.int/heli/risks/urban/en/

11. Air Pollution - Cancer • Carcinogenic compounds in urban air pollution pose a significant threat to health: • Polycyclic Aromatic Lung cancer Hydrocarbons (PAHs) • Benzene Leukemia • 1,3-Butadiene Lymphoma and hematopoietic cancer

12. PAHs in ambient air in various cities Ambient PAHs Levels (ng/m3) City, Country Asia: Bangkok, Thailand 32-84 Jakarta, Indonesia 13-177 Seoul, Korea 8-265 Others: Silesia, Poland 83-415 Montreal, Canada 15-36 Melbourne, Australia 2-22

13. Benzene in ambient air in various cities Benzene Levels (g/m3) City, Country Lagos, Nigeria 250 108* Bangkok, Thailand Cotonou, Benin 76 Grenoble, France 24 Copenhagen, Denmark 3 *1 ppb benzene ~ 3.19 g/m3; data used here is 33.71 ppb ambient roadside levels in Bangkok.

14. Cancer risk associated with PAHs exposure levels measured in Bangkok Predicted Cancer Cases in Bangkokb Groups Estimated Lung Cancer Riska PAHs Exposure (BaP Equivalent) PAH-DNA adducts (ng/m3) (cases / 8 million) (cases / 100,000) (adducts/108nucleotides) Traffic Police Office Police School Children 5920 1120 1200 7.37 1.36 1.50 1.6 1.2 0.45 74 14 15 a, According to WHO Air Quality Guidelines for Europe, excess lifetime cancer risk is 10additional cancer cases per 100,000 exposed individuals at 1 ng/m3 BaP; cancer risk based on 8-hour exposure b, Predicted cancer cases in Bangkok based on the BaP exposure level in each study group and a population of 8 million

15. Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI) as lead regional institution for coordinating the assessment studies on Atmospheric Brown Cloud impacts on human health

16. Collaborations • National level • Regional level • International level • involve governments, the private sector, academic, research and non-governmental organizations for increased knowledge on environmental health problems and the response measures required.

17. Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI) • WHO Collaboration Center for Capacity Building and Research in Environmental Health Science • UNEP Center of Excellence in Environmental and Industrial Toxicology

18. Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI) • CRI is committed to assisting countries in the region in the development of human resources and capacity building.

19. The Opening Scientific Segment Emerging Environmental Health Concerns ---Strengthening Science in Policies--- Initiating a Dialogue Chairperson: Professor Dr. HRH Princess Chulabhorn President, Chulabhorn Research Institute, Thailand Panelists: Professor Sir Gordon Conway, KCMG DL FRS Professor of International Development, Imperial College London, U.K. Professor Margaret Liu Foreign Adjunct Professor, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden Facilitator: Professor Nay Htun IRI/Columbia University, New York, U.S.A.