Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is the Compendium of WHO and other UN guidance on health and environment?
The Compendium is a comprehensive collection of available WHO and other United Nations (UN) guidance for improving health by creating healthier environments. It provides an overview and easy access of 500 actions, and a framework for thinking about health and environment interventions. It covers a broad range of areas such as air pollution, water, sanitation and hygiene, climate change, chemicals, radiation, or food systems.
Guidance is classified according to principal sectors involved, level of implementation (national, community, health care), and the type of instrument (taxes, infrastructure etc.). The Compendium compiles existing guidance from over 400 documents in a simple and systematized format.
The target audience includes any decision-makers with relevance to health and environment, and those assisting them (such as mayors, staff in ministries, UN country staff etc.).
The Compendium has been prepared by WHO in cooperation with UN Environment, UNDP and UNICEF.
2. How can I access the guidance provided in the Compendium?
The guidance compiled in the Compendium can be downloaded from the dedicated WHO website in the form of a 200-page PDF document. Additionally, users can download chapters by health and environment topic in separate PDFs. Guidance can be searched according to its classifiers including principal sectors involved, level of implementation and type of instrument.
An extended version for policy-makers, containing the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) codes for each of the interventions, is currently under development and will be made available on this website later in 2021.
3. How should guidance be prioritized in a country, community or in the framework of universal health coverage?
Priority actions for achieving healthy environments for healthier populations in a country or community depend on the current situation and available resources. The local situation needs to be reviewed in terms of prevailing risks and health impacts, opportunities for health gains, available governance mechanisms, required resources and cost-effectiveness in order to select priority actions for development and implementation.
4. Why is a specific guidance not in the Compendium?
This may be for a number of reasons:
- For guidance to be included in the compendium, it needs to feature in documents published by WHO or other UN organizations. This means that the guidance, together with its underlying evidence, has already been reviewed according to the institutions’ criteria.
- WHO or other UN agency may have recommended the intervention a long time ago but have not issued recent recommendations.
- The compendium is frequently being updated, but the uptake of recent guidance may be slightly delayed.
- The spectrum of environmental improvements having a positive health impact on health is very broad and wide ranging. This compendium only includes the main guidance with the most direct health impacts, and it is acknowledged that additional actions may lead to further health benefits.
5. How often will the Compendium be updated?
To ensure the most up-to-date information is provided to the end users, the Compendium will be updated yearly, or as soon as a major WHO or other UN guidance on health and environment is being released.
6. How to cite the Compendium?
Please use this suggested citation:
Compendium of WHO and other UN guidance on health and environment. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2021 (WHO/HEP/ECH/EHD/21.02). Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.