International conference on environmental and occupational lung diseases.

Poverty and lack of development are critical contributing factors to environmental hazards that affect the health of many hundreds of millions of people worldwide, particularly at the household level. Too often in too much of the world, however, the industrial and commercial development that helps reduce poverty has resulted in ambient environmental degradation and threats to human health as well. Workplace hazards are all too common everywhere. There is therefore a double need for research and action: a) to reduce the environmental health hazards of poverty and, b) to guide economic development in ways that produce healthy environments for the public and workers as well as economic well-being. Health is not only a goal in its own right but also a prerequisite to sustainable economic development. Although other important diseases have significant environmental determinants, including malaria and diarrhea, the burden of respiratory diseases is large on a global basis and is a strong function of environmental conditions in all countries. Polluted air in the home, workplace, or ambient environment is responsible for serious health effects in both developed and developing countries. It varies from country to country depending on geography, climate, industrial patterns, cultural factors, fuel use, and government policy, for example. In addition, actual individual exposure to air pollutants may vary greatly depending on the location and activity of the individual. In addition to exposure patterns and the character of the pollutants, health impacts themselves depend further on age distribution, nutritional status, preexposure to other chemicals, background disease rates, genetic factors, and other population characteristics. In all, however, the absolute health impact of pollution is substantially greater in the developing world, although there are important variations by pollutant categories. Given the worldwide importance of environmental and occupational respiratory disease at all levels of development, it is valuable to provide a global venue for sharing information among scientists and policy makers concerned with these environmental health concerns.