Multi-jurisdictional expert opinion for improving children's environmental health protection

Abstract

Expert opinion from Canada, the United States and European Union countries was solicited to examine the regulatory and non-regulatory approaches used to protect children's environmental health. Thirty-five experts were interviewed by telephone from June 2004 to March 2005 using an open-ended survey questionnaire. Experts were asked to name legislative and non-legislative tools used to protect children's environmental health in their jurisdiction as well as the effectiveness of approaches taken, barriers, facilitators, methods of evaluation, and recommendations for improving children's health protection. A number of common themes were revealed by experts in different countries as well as novel approaches that could be used to improve children's environmental health. Determining what types of governance and non-governance instruments are most effective based on experience from other jurisdictions, allows for the determination of common, effective, policy choice from shared children's health environmental risks. It also provides a broad classification of different approaches that have been used for children's environmental health. Three main areas suggested for strengthening children's environmental health protection included: research and surveillance, institutional organization, and regulatory capacity.

Keywords:

• children
• environmental health
• policy
• expert opinion

Acknowledgements

All experts are thanked for their time and participation in the survey. This research was supported in part by a financial contribution from the Health Policy Research Program, Health Canada. D. Krewski is the NSERC/SSHRC/McLaughlin Chair in Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. Experts at the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment including Jamie Benidickson, Don Wigle, John Harrison and Vic Armstrong are thanked for their help during the survey design.