Background The United Nations Secretary-General's report on violence against children has heightened awareness in countries of the victimisation of children worldwide. The response has been greater emphasis on child protection rather than primary prevention. Purpose To raise the level of debate about the need for European wide policy on the primary prevention of child maltreatment. Methods Policy analysis based on documents, survey of health ministry focal persons and age standardised mortality rates. Results Child maltreatment is responsible for 1500 deaths in children under 5 years of age in the 53 countries of the WHO European Region. Deaths are the tip of the clinical iceberg and millions of children are affected annually. In spite the gravity of this problem, only 80% of European Member States have policies for child maltreatment, and only 40% focus on primary prevention. WHO is conducting surveys of adverse childhood experiences in Lithuania, Latvia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Romania. Results are being presented at national policy dialogues to prioritise prevention. Significance Maltreatment constitutes one of the most severe forms of adverse experiences in childhood, and which are implicated in health risk behaviours and health effects such as the development of noncommunicable disease, mental illness and violence. Policy links are being made to the current global and European health agenda on noncommunicable disease, social determinants of health and Health 2020. This paper presents the evidence and discusses the need for a European policy to advocate for preventing child maltreatment.

Although the causal nature of the association is uncertain, findings support the hypothesis that waste-related environmental exposures in Campania produce increased risks of mortality and, to a lesser extent, CAs.

The patterns of association between waste-related environmental pressures and SES suggest that some of the observed inequalities in exposure and health represent a case of environmental injustice as they are the result of social processes and may be prevented, at least partly. Disentangling the possible health effects remains difficult, due to limitations in the methodology. It seems important to investigate if disadvantaged people are more vulnerable, i.e. risks differ in different social groups living in the same area. Notwithstanding these open questions, public health officers and decision makers should identify waste management policies to minimize their potential health impacts and their unequal distribution.

Several recent studies have documented that a widespread practice of dumping toxic wastes has taken place for many years in the Provinces of Naples and Caserta. Extensive programs of environmental monitoring are currently ongoing in the area. In this frame, the Department of Civil Defence of the Italian Government has appointed an ad hoc study group in order to assess the health status of the population resident in the area of interest. The first investigation performed by the study group has been a geographic study on cancer mortality and occurrence of malformations in 196 municipalities constituting the two Provinces. The study detected an area located in the southeastern part of the Province of Caserta and in the northwestern part of the Province of Naples, where cancer mortality and congenital malformations show significantly increased rates with respect to expected figures derived from the regional population. The area highlighted by the study is, in general terms, overlapping with the area where most illegal dumping of toxic wastes took place. It is now recommended that mortality studies be extended to take into account other health outcomes, to search for correlations with environmental exposures, and consider possible confounding factors.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), through the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), are responsible for global monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The SDGs represent a fundamental shift in household WASH monitoring with a new focus on service levels and the incorporation of hygiene. This article reflects on the process of establishing SDG baselines and the methods used to generate national, regional and global estimates for the new household WASH indicators. The JMP 2017 update drew on over 3000 national data sources, primarily household surveys (n = 1443), censuses (n = 309) and administrative data (n = 1494). Whereas most countries could generate estimates for basic drinking water and basic sanitation, fewer countries could report on basic handwashing facilities, water quality and the disposal of waste from onsite sanitation. Based on data for 96 and 84 countries, respectively, the JMP estimates that globally 2.1 billion (29%) people lacked safely managed drinking water services and 4.5 billion (61%) lacked safely managed sanitation services in 2015. The expanded JMP inequalities database also finds substantial disparities by wealth and sub-national regions. The SDG baselines for household WASH reveal the scale of the challenge associated with achieving universal safely managed services and the substantial acceleration needed in many countries to achieve even basic services for everyone by 2030. Many countries have begun to localise the global SDG targets and are investing in data collection to address the SDG data gaps, whether through the integration of new elements in household surveys or strengthening collection and reporting of information through administrative and regulatory systems.