"Our planet, our health": saving lives, promoting health and attaining well-being by protecting the planet - the Eastern Mediterranean perspectives

Environmental health work in the Region focuses on supporting the leadership of the public health and environmental protection sectors in regulating and monitoring environmental health factors and nexuses with the burden of disease (including Coronavirus), promoting preventive interventions, and catalyzing adequate environmental health services and actions by relevant sectors (e.g. water, municipalities, energy, agriculture, industry, transport, etc.). Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, rapid urbanization, geopolitical conflict and militarization, demographic change, population displacement, poverty, and widespread inequity create risks of future crises even more severe than those experienced today" (6). During the latest conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change COP26, eleven countries from the Region committed to develop climate-resilient and sustainable health systems (7).