It is a basic requirement of health that the global cycles and systems on which all life depends are sustained. The potential for the environment to have adverse effects on health has been realised for centuries. However, in recent years a growing public understanding, coupled with the political and socio-economic changes which have swept the European region, have resulted in a new awareness and urgency to deal with environmental health issues. Human health is determined by various factors including genetic disposition, lifestyle, socio-economic status, access to adequate health care and the environment. However as well as having a direct impact on an individual's health, which can be potentially positive or negative, environmental factors can also affect the other conditions which contribute to community health and well-being.
Life expectancy is a very broad and approximate indicator of a population's health.
However one of the most striking features in the European region is the gap in life expectancy which is observed between eastern and western countries, and it is a gap that appears to be growing. A number of factors contribute to this statistic, but it is difficult to ignore or discount the environmental burden that eastern Europe has inherited. In central and eastern Europe responsibility for this situation can be laid at the door of forty years of centralist planning, which did not recognise nor work with the conventions of contemporary environmental management. The urgency to develop apparently strong industrial economies required large scale programmes of mining and heavy manufacturing which scarred the countryside and polluted towns and cities. These policies not only damaged the natural environment, they also posed threats to health, placed external costs on other aspects of the economy and generally disrupted life quality.