Task Force on Health
The Joint Task Force on Health Aspects
of Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution
Chair:
Mr. M. Krzyzanowski
The Executive Body and the
European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH)
of the World Health Organization (WHO) established
in 1997 the Joint Task Force on the Health Aspects
of Air Pollution to assess the health effects of
long-range transboundary air pollution and provide
supporting documentation. Assessments aim to quantify
the contribution of transboundary air pollution
to human health risks and help define priorities
for guiding future monitoring and abatement strategies.
The Task Force brings together experts
delegated by countries that are Parties to the Convention,
and its work is based on estimates of air pollution
concentrations, in particular those derived by the
Cooperative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation
of Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in
Europe (EMEP), and on the results of hazard assessment
performed by the WHO (e.g. in the scope of the revision
of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines). Besides assessing
the health significance of the pollution as an important
input to designing pollution abatement strategies,
the Task Force identifies the information required
for improving assessments by providing advice to
monitoring and modelling activities under the Convention.
The Task Force has reviewed and
reported results on the health impacts of particulate
matter (PM), ozone (O3), heavy metals and persistent organic
pollutants (POPs). In future most of these topics
will be reassessed in more detail.
Further information is available
from the
Center for the Task Force on Health at ECEH.