Policymakers are warning that the EU is not looking enough at the cumulative health effects of citizens’ environments, and the impacts are already being felt. “It is really time to act because an epidemic is rising, an epidemic of non-communicable diseases. It is not perceived by policymakers as an epidemic, but it is, and it will have huge effects on Europe.”
That stark warning from Christophe Clergeau, a French centre-left member of the European Parliament, came at a gathering of scientists, policymakers and public health leaders in Barcelona, increasingly convinced that Europe is fighting the wrong battle if it focuses only on treatment rather than causes.
The epidemic in question is not infectious, but chronic: cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and respiratory illness. Together, these non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for the overwhelming majority of deaths in Europe, and their rise is tightly linked to the environments people live in.
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