FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
SCIENCES ORGANISED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES, FACULTY
OF PUBLIC HEALTH, COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, IBADAN, NIGERIA.
Introduction
The first national conference
on Environmental Health Sciences held from 24-27 November, 2013, took place at
the Centre for Sustainable Development (CESDEV), University of Ibadan. The
theme of the conference was “Environmental Health: Protecting the Ecosystems
beyond the Millennium Development Goals”.
The conference was attended
by scientists and researchers from within and outside Nigeria, environmental
health practitioners, policy makers, students, civil society organisations,
environmental health activists and a host of other stakeholders in sustainable
environmental health development. The conference which had the Executive
Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, as special guest of honour,
featured presentations and discussion of several papers which cut across
emerging and re-emerging issues relating to environmental health and safety. At
the end of the conference, participants developed and endorsed the following
communiqué.
A COMMUNIQUÉ
Uniqueness of the conference
It was observed that the
conference:
1.
Was a
landmark in the history of EnvironmentalHealth Sciences in Nigeria, being the
first environmental health sciences
conference organised by a University in Nigeria;
2.
Was attended
by scholars, field-based environmental health practitioners, civil society
organisations, and policy makers at various levels
3.
Provided
the opportunity for cross-fertilization of ideas in terms of what works and
what does not in environmental health programmes;
4.
Was an
avenue for brainstorming on issues or factors which compromise the integrity of
the ecosystem, thus adversely influencing man’s health, quality of life and
sustainable development;
5.
Was
organised at the most auspicious time, a time when Nigeria and many other countries
in Africa are plagued by environmentally induced health challenges, disasters, economic
crises and poor agricultural yields etc;
6.
Constituted
an opportunity for scientists and environmental health professionals in the
field to exchange ideas relating to emerging and re-emerging environmental
health challenges and how to tackle them.
Observations
It was observed that:
1.
Water
and sanitation-related problems continued to pose major environmental
health-related challenges in Nigeria and other African countries;
2.
The
causes of environmental health challenges are natural and man-made in Nigeria.
A major concern is that, emergency preparedness programme to cope with them are
not given top priority.
3.
A lot
of innovative eco-sanitation environmental health intervention models or technologies
have been developed, tested and found to be effective in
addressing some of the environmental challenges in Nigerian communities by
researchers; however, there are no concerted efforts aimed at commercialising
them or scaling them up for the benefit of the larger population
4.
There
is a disconnect between government and universities in Nigeria in respect of
practical and cost-effective steps that can be initiated to address the environmental
health-related needs of the people due largely to the fact that little efforts
are made to carry out the social marketing of research outcomes by universities
and the reluctance or failure of government to deliberately search for and
adopt local innovations;
5.
Climate
changes as well as exposure to aerosols and radiation from various sources are
environmental risk factors with far reaching health, economic and social
consequences; yet adequate attention is not being paid to how to mitigate their
impact or control them;
6.
There
is a plethora of findings derived from environmental health-related researches
in Nigeria; most of them however lies buried in scientific literature and so
are not accessible to end users.
7.
Private-Public
Partnership for the future of environmental security will be effective if
challenges such as weak law implementation and enforcement, lack of political
will, corruption and inadequate private capital are addressed.
Advocacy
It was advocated that:
1.
The
development of a sustainable environmental health and safety plan which is
feasible, comprehensive and can be implemented using culturally appropriate and
affordable local technologies should be given top priority;
2.
Emergency
preparedness plans are desirable; they should not only be developed but should be
reviewed from time to time and based
on empirical evidence;
3.
Environmental
health and safety interventions should always take into consideration the
influence of human behaviours and their associated antecedent factors such as
perception values and attitudes;
4.
While
it is good to always think globally, as far as environmental health and safety
issues are concerned, in practice, we should always act locally with a view to
ensuring that interventions address people’s needs and also take into
consideration local peculiarities;
5.
In
view of the fact that environmental health challenges are often multi-factorial
in terms of causation there is the need to ensure that multi-disciplinary
approaches are always adopted.
Recommendations
It was recommended that:
1.
The
environmental health sciences conference should be organized periodically with
a view to ensuring that it serves as an opportunity for continuing education
for attendees including field practitioners, civil society organisations,
policy makers and researchers;
2.
The
conference proceedings should be compiled, published and distributed widely to
facilitate environmental health and safety related advocacy, education and
policy formulation or revision of existing policies;
3.
Government
at various levels should pool their resources together with a view to reviewing
existing environmental health-related policies, formulate new ones and ensure
strict compliance with policies the objective of achieving sound environmental protection and promoting a sustainable
environment;
4.
Findings
from environmental health and safety-related studies should be synthesized,
simplified and made available to field practitioners, policy makers and other
stakeholders with a view to facilitating evidenced-based environmental health
and safety interventions and public enlightenment;
5.
Aerosol
and air quality related studies should be promoted in Nigeria because of their
public health implications. Findings from such researches will serve as
baseline information for developing appropriate standards, monitoring trends
and designing interventions aimed at mitigating their impacts;
6.
The
integration of environmental health and social sciences research should be
promoted with a view to yielding results, which can be used more effectively to
promote a sustainable environment;
7.
Open
burning of seized contraband by government agencies should be discouraged
instead, use of container burner is advocated
Communiqué drafting committee
1.
Dr.
Fred Oshiname - Chairman
2.
Oluwafemi
Dipeolu - Secretary
3.
Mumuni
Adejumo
4.
Olufemi
O. Aluko
5.
Ayo
Awe
6.
Gloria
T. Nwachukwu
7.
John Olamijulo
8.
Godfrey
Okorie
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