Publications

This report describes exploratory analyses on the influence of different social contexts on environmental attitudes of 428 young people from the FLEHS IV study (2016-2020). Using a stepwise multiple regression, we first examined the influence of social background, family context and school context on young people's environmental attitudes (defined as an optimistic or pessimistic view of the environment). Second, we analysed whether the ...

We spend about 85% of our time in buildings, a large part of which is in our home. Our home is an important part of our living environment. It gives us protection and comfort. The indoor environment is also very important for our health. In some Flemish homes, the wood-burning stove is used as main heating, as additional heating or as an atmospheric element. It has long been known that wood-burning stoves emit pollutants. The extent to which ...

For Europe as a whole, data on internal exposure to environmental chemicals do not yet exist. Characterization of the internal individual chemical environment is expected to enhance understanding of the environmental threats to health.

Background The "European Environment & Health Action Plan 20042010" originates from the concern of the European Commission on the well-being of individuals and the general population. Through this plan, the Commission has set the objectives to improve the information chain for a better understanding of the link between sources of pollution and health effects, to better identify existing knowledge gaps, and improve policy making and ...

In 2002 the Flemish Government decided to initiate the Flem-ish Environment and Health Survey (FLEHS), an extended humanbiomonitoring (HBM) program to assess and monitor human expo-sure of the Flemish population to environmental pollution and itsimpact on public health. Flanders is a densely populated area inthe North of Belgium with intense traffic and widespread indus-trial and agricultural activities, which have a measurable impacton ...

This report describes the development, implementation, results and evaluation of a strategy to improve the participation of socially vulnerable target groups in a human biomonitoring study (HBM) study of the Support Center Environment and Health. That HBM study measures the impact of environmental pollutants on health via blood and urine samples from newly delivered women and their baby. Socially vulnerable groups, such as people with low levels ...