ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH INDICATORS: EXPERIENCES IN HUNGARY Tibor Málnási, É. Vaskövi, G. Nádor, A. Páldy “József Fodor” National Center for Public Health, National Institute of Environmental Health, Budapest, Hungary

Hungary has been involved in the WHO/ECEH project “Environmental Health Indicators for the WHO European Region” since the beginning. After the evaluation of the feasibility study, the data collection started. The software tool for the date collection and management (EuroIndy) was developed by the help of the National Institute of Environmental Health, in Hungary

During the data collection and the assessment several difficulties were discovered: some data are not available in Hungary, others are not available according to the requirements, it was difficult to identify the data holders and the cooperation between the different institutes was not sufficient.

The “Exposure to urban ambient air pollutants” is a key indicator, summarizing important environmental and health information. Several difficulties emerged in Hungary during the data collection and the computation of this indicator. One key element is the identification of the population that is relevant to the measured pollutant concentration.

Exposure of population to daily average TSP concentration above 230 μ g/m 3 in Budapest

Exposure of population to daily average TSP concentration above national standard (100 μ g/m 3 ) in Budapest

Exposure of population to daily average SO 2 concentration above 125 μ g/m 3 in Budapest

Population weighted exposure to NO 2 exceeding 40 μ g/m 3 annual mean in Budapest

A GIS method was used in a selected city (Budapest), for a selected pollutant (NO2), to identify the relevant population for the concentration measured by a passive monitoring. For the characterization of the exposure, concentration categories were used.

Assessment of EHI by WHO exposure population concentration Limit value EXP y =  ( P i /P) * (C yi – RV y ) NO 2, SO 2, O 3 PM 10, TSP, BS,

Air pollution exposure assessment Location Budapest Component NO 2 Timeframe / quarter of a year Duration of exposure 1 week No of sampling points 80 (10% traffic) Methods –sampling: passive monitoring –analyzis: photometry

Population categories year year > 65 year

Categories of air pollution (µgm 3 ) 17/2001 (VIII.3.) directive of MinEnv NO 2 Lower threshold< 26 Upper threshold26 – 32 Limit value32 – 40 1,5 * LV40 – 60 2 *LV60 – 80 > 2 *LV> 80 LV

NO 2 pollution ( µgm 3 ) by sampling points

Spatial distribution of NO 2 pollution (µgm 3 ) <

Yearly mean pollution of NO 2 by age groups (1) >LV <LV

Yearly mean pollution of NO 2 by age groups (2) >65 y y 0-14 y

NO 2 indicator

Summary I. The fraction of population exposed to TSP and SO2 concentration exceeding the RV showed a decreasing tendency The population weighted exposure to NO2 incerased during the first 3 years, later decreased

Summary II. The results of GIS analysis of the spatial distribution of NO2 exposure showed: Highest exposed area: downtown Highest exposed group of population: –> 65 y >Percentage of exposed population to NO2 over the limit value: 28%