Children's environment in Central Europe: threats and chances

Many of the "classical" environmental hazards and risks (such as anthropogenic chemical and physical factors, e.g., asbestos, dioxin, electromagnetic fields and "pesticides") are in our countries not major determinants of children's health and well being; however, there may exist unseen or unrecognized causal contexts. Some hazards, such as UV light, noise, fine particles, tobacco smoke, legal and illegal drugs, and radon, are considered important by experts, but are still largely ignored by the public. In our society, despite of, or maybe because of the multitude of information and disinformation, adequate risk perception continues to be a problem. Furthermore, ever-new environmental toxicants will come to the surface and occupy medial interest, and thus, continuing attention is warranted. Of our children's environment, yet other facets are of prime importance: nutrition, housing and traffic and public media. Most important, however, is the fact that society (governments, administration, industry and consumers) are disregarding the long-term sustainability of their actions and behaviour, thus endangering the future of our children and grandchildren. This is in contrast with the existing declarations and official action plans. In future, ranking of priorities for research and actions will be necessary, taking into account costs and effectiveness since resources to be invested into these issues certainly will remain limited.