WHO CC for Environmental Health in Contaminated Sites

 Since 2013 the Environmental and Social Epidemiology Unit, Department of Environment and Health at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) has been designated as World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre (CC) for Environmental health in contaminated sites (ITA-97). 

The WHO CC ITA-97 has been redesignated, in 2017, in 2021 and in 2025. The last designation (2025-2029) is linked to the following Terms of Reference (ToR):  

1. To support to WHO's technical work towards (i) assessing the health risks and impacts of contaminated sites from an equity perspective; (ii) strengthening capacity of Member States on environmental health issues related to contaminated sites.

2. To support WHO's technical work to evaluating the wide-ranging environmental health dimensions of contaminated sites, with attention to the state-of-the-art knowledge on the effects and impacts of extreme weather events, addressing the triple environmental crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution.

Among the principal activities coordinated by the WHO CC ITA-97, there is the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action on Industrially Contaminated Sites and Health Network (ICSHNet) IS1408 - Industrially Contaminated Sites and Health Network (ICSHNet), supported by the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020.

The ICSHNet COST Action involved the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe, the European Commission and EU Agencies, and 33 Countries, with more than 150 researchers and experts from about 50 environmental public health institutions and universities.

The main COST Action outputs are available at: https://www.iss.it/-/networking-guidance