That translates into roughly 11 million avoidable childhood deaths each year. Hundreds of millions of others, both children and adults, suffer ill health and disability that undermine their quality of life and hopes for the future. What's more, in many newly and rapidly industrializing regions of the developing world, the populations are in double jeopardy, facing both this unfinished agenda of traditional environmental health problems as well as emerging problems of industrial pollution. Cottage industries, such as backyard tanneries, can place workers and residents in direct contact with hazardous chemicals. Such problems are increasingly pronounced in the slum settlements that ring many of the world's cities.
Problems can be particularly acute where economic growth is extremely rapid.
In the world's wealthiest regions, such as Europe, North America, and Japan, although environmental risks overall tend to be lower, they have by no means disappeared. Asthma is rising dramatically throughout the developed countries, and environmental factors appear to be at least partly to blame. Millions of people in Europe and North America are still exposed to unsafe air, and some air pollutants are proving more recalcitrant to control than many expected. Meanwhile, biological contamination is by no means a thing of the past, as shown by the 1993 outbreak of Cryptosporidium in the United States. The extension of travel and trade is providing new opportunities for the spread or re-emergence of infectious diseases.