Chile confronts its environmental health future after 25 years of accelerated growth

摘要

BackgroundChile has recently been reclassified by the World Bank from an upper middle income country to a higher income country. There has been great progress in the last 20–30 years in relation to air and water pollution in Chile. Yet after 25 years of unrestrained growth there remain clear challenges posed by air and water, as well as climate change. Methods: In late 2013 a three-day workshop on environmental health was held in Santiago, bringing together researchers and government policy makers. As a follow-up to that workshop, here we review the progress made in environmental health in the past 20–30 years, and discuss the challenges of the future. We focus on air and water pollution, and climate change, which we believe are among the most important areas of environmental health in Chile.