protecting the fetus and the child
from environmental hazards

a healthy environment
for all children

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California Framework and Priorities

Goal
The California Project, funded by a generous grant from The California Wellness Foundation, was initiated to improve children's health by addressing environmental health hazards. Specifically, the project:

• Identified the key issues confronting California children and their exposures to environmental hazards;
• Formed a broad constituency base to include architects, child advocates, community group leaders, environmentalists, environmental justice advocates, faith leaders, government service providers, healthcare professionals, policymakers, public policy advocates, researchers, school officials, and urban planners;
• Created a multi-disciplinary network to address children's health hazards in the environment in California; and
• Developed a statewide agenda on children's environmental health.

View our interim findings

Background
To reach the project's goals, Network staff solicited input from diverse leaders and stakeholders throughout the state by conducting individual and regional meetings. These discussions served as the foundation for the development of a children's environmental health agenda and potential network in California. In the coming months, Network staff will refine this agenda through strategic planning discussions. From there, the California network identified strategies to implement the agenda, thereby creating the beginning of a sound infrastructure for protecting the state's children from environmental health hazards.

Individual Meetings Based on interviews with over 200 multidisciplinary leaders across California, several themes emerged. Leaders are mostly concerned about (in alphabetical order):

• air pollution;
• asthma;
• brown fields;
• environmental justice;
• healthy homes and schools;
• lead poisoning;
• pesticides;
• suburban sprawl;
• toxic pollution from industries; and
• water quality.

Regional Strategy Meetings CEHN convened regional strategy meetings with diverse experts in the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California, and Central California. Participants who attended the regional meetings were asked to prioritize the concerns identified from previous meetings. Experts also added extra issues to the list of concerns. Over 100 leaders throughout the state voiced their expertise regarding the key children's environmental health priorities in California. All three regions ranked air pollution as one of the highest priorities, and the table below shows the top results from each region:

Strategies At both individual and regional meetings, experts suggested various strategies to address children's environmental health in California. These included:

• Building the capacity of multidisciplinary leaders through awareness raising about children's environmental health;
• Creating more child-protective governmental policies on children's environmental health with an oversight component;
• Forming a central location of resources on children's environmental health;
• Conducting more research to inform the field; and
• Establishing a network whereby people can get support to advocate for their issue throughout the state.

There are many reasons why creating a diverse constituency base throughout California on children's health and the environment is crucial. Most importantly, kids are not little adults. They are more vulnerable to health effects from exposure to toxicants in the air, soil, and water than adults. Because many of their organ systems are still developing, children and adolescents may suffer permanent damage (i.e., learning disabilities, cancer, respiratory problems, or damage to their nervous and reproductive systems) from exposures to toxicants like lead, pesticides, air pollution, and endocrine disruptors.

With the use of synthetic chemicals increasing by several orders of magnitude over the past 50 years, children are now exposed to potentially hazardous chemicals in the food they eat, the water they drink, the air they breathe--wherever they play, learn, and live. With one in eight children in the U.S. living in California, it is time that we join together as a unified state to improve the health of our children.

Background paper on the State of CEH in California
Click here to see an overview of children's environmental health in California. This paper discusses the exposures, health risks, and the present children's environmental health policies in the state of California.