President George Bush declared October 1, 2007 Child Health Day. The EPA celebrates Children's Health Month each October by developing publications and activities that highlight the importance of protecting children from environmental risks.
You can view an English calendar or download a Korean calendar with a children's environmental health tip for every day in October.
Ten years ago, the EPA established the Office of Children's Health Protection to make the health protection of children a fundamental goal of public health and environmental protection. The Office of Children’s Health Protection and Environmental Education (OCHPEE) is reflecting on the progress to date and formulating a vision for the future.
2007 Children's Environmental Health Report
In honor of Children’s Health Month, EPA released Children's Environmental Health: 2007 Highlights ( PDF). This year marks the tenth year of explicit attention to the health of children following the Executive Order of 1997, Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks. EPA has funded research on how the environment affects children’s health, promoted the education of health care providers, assembled data to quantify the extent of the issues, and been an international leader of children’s health issues. Children’s Environmental Health: 2007 Highlights captures all this and more.
Two programs show how the lives of children have improved in the last decade.
- The Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSUs) are an ongoing partnership with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Association of Occupation and Environmental Clinics to provide exceptional advice to the health care community and parents on particular environmental agents of concern. In ten years, the PEHSUs have trained 100,000 health professionals about children's environmental health. This program is popular enough to be replicated in other countries, where the need for readily available, academically driven, expertise on children's environmental health is recognized.
- The Children's Research Centers are a partnership with the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences to advance the understanding of how the environment affects children's health. The agencies have funded 21 centers over ten years which have provided valuable information about the effects of pesticide exposures, air pollution and asthma, chemicals in water, genetic and environmental interactions, and early indicators of environmentally-related diseases. Policy makers and health professionals have used this information to improve children's health.
- EPA
