Övers. av: Hälsoaspekter i miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar för vägar

The third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health (London, 16-18 June 1999) for European Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) held a meeting which among other things resulted in the Charter on Transport, Environment and Health. The Swedish National Institute of Public Health is the Swedish contact point for this Charter and the initiator of this study. The aim of the study was to evaluate how health issues were presented in environmental impact assessments for roads. The study included two parts. In the first part a protocol was produced that was to be used for examining environmental impact assessments in a standardized way. The protocol was based on a literature study with a main focus on community noise and air pollution. The second part of the study contained an examination of environmental impact assessments. These documents were collected from the Swedish Road Administration and from a few major municipalities. The results of the study showed that only a few of those who had written the documents had used help from experts on health issues. An almost exclusive way to show the consequences of health in the projects was by comparison with guidelines and limit values. Most of the environmental impact assessments did not include a presentation of the affected population. Many of the studied documents had a description of health related goals, but only a few presented how their project would meet these goals.