Uni Bremen’s Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research Recognised By WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) has again recognized the Department of Social Epidemiology at the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research IPP at the University of Bremen as a WHO Collaborating Center for Environmentally Related Health Inequalities.
The World Health Organization (WHO) selects scientific institutions as collaborating centers that support their professional work. The international group of collaborating centers analyzes data, evaluates scientific findings and works with the WHO to develop internationally valid statements and political recommendations.
Professor Gabriele Bolte, who advises the WHO with her team at the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research at the University of Bremen , emphasizes: “As the WHO Collaborating Centre , we can contribute our expertise on social inequalities in the environment and health to international health reporting, scientific opinions and political recommendations for environmental health promotion. Continuous monitoring is an important prerequisite for evaluating measures to improve environmental quality with regard to social inequalities.” With the redesignation, the successful work can be continued for another four years.
The Rector of the University of Bremen, Professor Jutta Günther, says: “The award from the WHO shows that we at the University of Bremen are doing relevant research and teaching on a very important topic. The link between environmental factors and population health is clear, as we can already see from the effects of climate change. The risks and effects are unequally distributed around the world, so these are also social issues that we as a society absolutely must address. Science is making an important contribution to climate justice here.”
Relationship between environmental pollution and health
The activities of the WHO collaborating center consist on the one hand of observing health-related environmental inequalities in Europe and improving the indicators for recording health-related environmental inequalities. A second focus is the development of a concept for assessing the health effects of socially unequally distributed environmental burdens and resources.
There is also a new focus in the area of further education. The team from Bremen will develop training modules on environmental health inequalities and their monitoring for WHO employees and actors from politics and administration in Europe.
The collaborating center at IPP produces a series of fact sheets on environmental health inequalities. The first factsheets focused on housing conditions including aspects such as overcrowding, humidity, thermal comfort and access to basic services such as safe drinking water and sanitation. Further fact sheets on social inequalities in terms of noise pollution, air pollution and energy poverty will be published this year.
At the Seventh Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, which took place in Budapest from July 5th to 7th, 2023, the Cooperation Center of the University of Bremen, together with the European Environment Agency, organized an event on social inequalities in environmental pollution in Europe, the current findings from the monitoring and their political implications.
The Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research IPP
Improving the health and well-being of the population is the central goal of the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen. The IPP deals with questions from the fields of health promotion and prevention, epidemiological methods and research into the causes of diseases, health and nursing care and the professionalization of the health professions. The Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen is one of the largest research institutes in this field in Germany.