Objective: To review the most relevant articles regarding environmental pediatrics, its potential effects on health, and especially its advances in prevention.Sources: A literature search was conducted using MEDLINE/PubMed and SciELO databases. Articles from 1990 to 2010 were reviewed, in addition to book chapters related to environmental pediatrics.
Summary of the findings:There is a significant variety of factors that make children highly vulnerable to environmental hazard exposure, which are mainly associated with children's comparatively greater consumption of water, food, and air in relation to body weight. According to the World Health Organization, every year more than 3 million children under the age of 5 die because of environment-related conditions. Approximately 30 to 40% of pediatric diseases are related to environmental factors. Children are constantly exposed to various environmental health hazards, among which the following stand out: contaminated water, lack of adequate sanitation facilities, air pollution, disease vectors, chemical hazards, injuries, and accidents.Conclusions: Nowadays, pediatricians are challenged to address environmental pediatrics health care needs. The pediatric health history needs to be more comprehensive by adding pointed questions to help identify potential environmental risks. Awareness and understanding of the noxious effects of various environmental conditions and knowledge of the related prevention measures will result in timely and adequate interventions that will improve our children's health and development. There is a large variety of factors that make children highly vulnerable to environmental hazards. Among those factors is the fact that, compared to adults, children drink more water, eat more food, and breathe more air in relation to their body weight. Therefore, children suffer a substantially greater exposure to toxics than adults do. Additionally, the hand-mouth behavior and the fact that children live and play close to the floor increase even more their exposure to environmental hazards. 2 Vulnerability of children to environmental factors such as those just mentioned makes environmental pediatrics a key issue for preventing or mitigating some of the risk factors. 90 Jornal de Pediatria -Vol. 87, No. 2, 2011 Environmental pediatrics -Valenzuela PM et al.According to the WHO, every year more than 3 million children under 5 years of age die because of environmentrelated causes and conditions. 3-5 Forty percent of such deaths are related to the lack of potable drinking water. 6 Moreover, 30-40% of the diseases affecting children, such as respiratory and gastroenterological conditions, tumors, and malformations, are associated with environmental factors. 5,7 In the developing world, the most common environmental diseases are diarrhea and lower respiratory tract infections, while allergies and asthma are the most prevalent in developed countries. 8It is critical to develop behaviors that enable the prevention or reduction of diseases, disabilities, ...