The WHO Collaborating Centre (CC) on Natural Environments and Health, based in Cornwall, UK, continues to compile evidence on the links between the natural environment and human well-being.
Hosted at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH), the recently redesignated CC supports the WHO European Region in establishing cause and effect between changes in the natural world and human health, and the health benefits and opportunities associated with biodiversity.
Human health and well-being depend on the natural environment, which is the source of biodiversity, clean air, water, healthy soils and food. ECEHH’s status as a WHO CC builds on the significant contribution made to science and policy-making as a result of more than a decade of interdisciplinary research.
“Through our valuable partnership with the ECEHH, WHO Europe has gained data and evidence that can shape healthier communities,” said Matthias Braubach, WHO Europe. “In modern times, access to nature is a significant concern for promoting and maintaining human health and well-being. The whole European Region benefits from ECEHH’s pioneering efforts to understand the way nature affects us and our health.”
Biodiversity and well-being
Throughout its tenure as a WHO CC, the ECEHH team, along with colleagues at the WHO European Centre for Environmental Health (ECEH) in Bonn, Germany, focused on the creation, delivery and dissemination of reports and events highlighting the importance of nature and biodiversity and their impacts on human health and well-being. These reports are aimed at policy-makers in national environment and health ministries as well as subnational authorities across Europe and beyond. The aim is to support individuals and organisations across the 53 member states of the WHO European Region in making evidence-based decisions, as well as providing concrete relevant examples of best practices and resources.
In May 2021, the ECEH launched the CC’s first report entitled “Nature, biodiversity and health: an overview of interconnections”. The CC helped to plan the report launch, to coincide with the International Day for Biological Diversity. The launch of the CC’s second report, “Assessing the value of urban blue and green spaces for human health and well-being”, coincided with the International Day for Biological Diversity in May 2023.
“Our collaboration with colleagues in the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health in Bonn, Germany, has been very productive. Together we have raised the profile of the essential importance of biodiversity for the health of both humans and the natural environment, such that it is now identified as a major objective in the recent Ministerial Environment and Health Conference in Budapest,” said Professor Lora E Fleming, Director of the WHO CC on Natural Environments and Health.