8 February 2012: Health experts agreed at a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) seminar that health should feature prominently in the agenda and outcome of the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20).

The event, the first in a “Road to Rio” seminar series by PAHO to explore the health dimensions of Rio+20, was held at PAHO headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on 8 February 2012, and Webcast.

Maria Neira, World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Public Health and Environment, said Rio+20 conclusions must try to incorporate health indicators to measure progress in health while ensuring that sustainable development policy decisions have a health impact assessment. She pointed out, for example, that planning sustainable cities should include health indicators, and that national plans for clean energy should take health centers into account. Neira argued that choosing strategies for transportation, housing and urban planning should take into account which ones also help reduce the impact of chronic disease and increase health benefits.

Luis Augusto Galvao, PAHO Area Manager for Sustainable Development and Environmental Health, stressed that health should be at the center of all development agendas, noting that it is often overlooked as an essential element contributing to development. He discussed linkages among various health and development issues, and called for health to be incorporated as a theme of Rio+20.

Paulo Buss, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (“Fiocruz”), discussed Brazil’s efforts in incorporating specific references to health in the draft Rio+20 outcome document.

Ana Lucia Ruggiero, PAHO Knowledge Management Specialist, introduced PAHO’s “Toolkit” for Rio +20, which offers a literature review of what has been done since 1990 on health and sustainable development, organized by topic, country and region, providing free access to 2,000 documents. She added that the toolkit seeks to facilitate communication between institutions and major groups on the issue through various means, including social media.

Future seminars will examines such issues as: water and sanitation; climate change and health; and environment and health in the Amazon Region. [PAHO Press Release (in Spanish)] [PAHO’s Rio+20 Toolkit]