Environmental Health

Bridging the Gaps

James A. Listorti, Fadi M. Doumani – Consultants
Africa Region Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure Family

Environmental Health: Bridging the Gaps (World Bank Discussion Paper No. 422) presents a new approach to improving human health in developing countries by focusing on preventive environmental measures, mainly those in urban and rural infrastructure. The benefits of improved management of human settlements from megacities to villages; of improved sanitation adapted to high and low density areas; of ample water for drinking and irrigation, of suitable municipal, domestic, medical, and agricultural waste disposal; of safe urban and rural transportation, and of clean burning energy from households to industries can all complement efforts by the health sector and are frequently missed in economic development projects. Improved management of these environmental health problems can relieve the health sector of the burden of disease that it inherits from them by default.

This work provides a foundation for understanding those linkages and complementarities, from diarrheal and respiratory diseases, two of the top burdens of disease in developing countries, to malaria, to injuries, to AIDS. The work also suggests means for finding “entry points” to facilitate collaboration among groups that are not used to working together, as well as economic justification (Part 1), provides environmental health assessment guidelines (Part 2), applies theory to practice in a case study (Part 3) and gives reference material (Annexes).

Environmental Health: Bridging the Gaps is written in non-technical language intended for a wide range of audiences: for the staff of the World Bank and its partner institutions in development, for other bilateral and multilateral development agencies, for governments and non-governmental organizations, as well as independent practitioners in the field.

This work, managed by the Africa Region's Finance, Private Sector and InfrastructureFamily (Praful Patel, Sector Director) was completed under the World Bank’s Urban Environmental Initiative of the Africa Region, supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC), as well the Norwegian government which financed preliminary work, the 1996 Bridging Environmental Health Gaps.

The underlined web links below connect with individual sections and chapters. The full work in one file is also listed at the end. Acrobat software is necessary to view the document as PDF files. To get an Acrobat viewer, visit Adobe's site for downloading instructions.

For individual sections of the Working Paper, click on the appropriate line:

Table of Contents (37KB PDF file) (visit Adobe’s site to get an Acrobat viewer)
Foreword (10KB PDF file)
Abstract and Acknowledgements (13KB PDF file)
How to Use This Volume and Acronym List (21KB PDF file)
Executive Summary (149KB PDF file)

Part 1: Harmonizing Sectoral Priorities: A New Approach to Environmental Health (1037KB PDF file, includes all of chapters 1-6. For just individual chapters, select below)

Chapter 1: Challenges of Environmental Health in Developing Countries (58KB PDF file)

Chapter 2: Developing Solutions through Targeted Collaboration (67KB PDF file)

Chapter 3: Socioeconomic Justification and Challenges (189KB PDF file)

Chapter 4: Gathering and Analyzing Information on Environmental Health (34KB PDF file)

Chapter 5: Preparing an “Environmental Health Profile” (668KB PDF file)
Chapter 6: Adapting Environmental Assessments or Preparing Environmental Health Assessments (86KB PDF file)

Part 2: Environmental Health Assessment Guidelines
(452KB PDF file, includes all of chapters 7-14. For just individual chapters, select below)

Chapter 7: Environmental Health Background Analyses (104KB PDF file)

Chapter 8: Cross-Sectoral Linkages: Agriculture and Rural Development Sector (118KB PDF file)

Chapter 9: Cross-Sectoral Linkages with the Energy Sector (33KB PDF file)

Chapter 10: Cross-Sectoral Linkages: Environment Sector (32KB PDF file)

Chapter 11: Cross-Sectoral Linkages: Health Sector (22KB PDF file)

Chapter 12: Cross-Sectoral Linkages: Industry Sector (29KB PDF file)

Chapter 13: Cross-Sectoral Linkages: Infrastructure Sector (170KB PDF file)

Chapter 14: Global Issues (30KB PDF file)

Part 3: Putting Theory into Practice: A Case Study in Ghana
(226KB PDF file, includes all of chapters 15-17. For just individual chapters, select below)

Chapter 15: Ghana Sample Sectoral Profiles (81KB PDF file)

Chapter 16: Sample Institutional Needs Health Assessment for Ghana (90KB PDF file)

Chapter 17: Sample Workshop Results on Targeted Collaboration in Ghana (80KB PDF file)

Annexes
(346KB PDF file, includes all of annexes. For just individual sections, select below)

Annex A: Environmental Health Assessments: Rapid Checklists (109KB PDF file)

Annex B: Basic Information on Important Diseases (106KB PDF file)

References (106KB PDF file)

Glossary (106KB PDF file)

Bibliography (106KB PDF file)

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