Environment and Health are Closely Related

Preface

Cleaner environment - healthier Danes

A long, good and healthy life. This is undoubtedly our greatest desire for ourselves, our children, our family, and our friends.

The environment considerably affects our health - both positively and negatively. For example, hazardous chemicals, pathogenic bacteria, and air pollution make us ill and worried. And this detrimentally affects our quality of life.

The government is therefore putting forward its first strategy for environmental factors and health based on the results of investigations and reviews carried out in the period up to 2002.

The new strategy will set forth goals and initiatives for preventing and limiting the negative effects of the environment on our health.

All Danes must be able to live a healthy life. We must be able to drink tap water, walk in the streets, go to work, and live at home in confidence. We must be able to bathe, eat the food sold in shops, and use the products with which we surround ourselves, without being afraid of environmental effects. Although this is largely possible today, there are areas in which the situation could be even better.

We must have a high level of protection, and we must make a special effort regarding particularly vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, children and the elderly.

The strategy provides us with an overview of how the environment affects our health, and how we can solve the problem of negative impacts.

The initiatives must have clear objectives so that we can constantly ensure progress. We must ensure that the authorities cooperate to the greatest extent possible.

In connection with presentation of the strategy, the level of activity in the environment area for 2003 and after will be adjusted, to ensure that the task at hand can be accorded high priority.

The authorities cannot resolve the task alone, however. We all have to share responsibility for ensuring a healthy environment in Denmark. Citizens, enterprises, and organisations must be included and work as partners.

The objective is clear: Cleaner environment - healthier Danes.

Hans Christian Schmidt, Minister for the Environment