Working Party on the Environment Annual Report

Enrique Barros, chair of the WONCA Environment provides a report on the working party activities of the past year.

Our working party has seen steadily growing activity. Our main achievements for the period:

-WONCA Europe Statement for WHO-Europe (collaboration lead by Ralph Guggenheim) - where WONCA Europe formally states the strategic relevance of Primary Care for the Sustainable Development Goals and for Planetary Health

- Proposal for a policy for sustainable WONCA events (Lead by Paola Rava Dellepiane and Alice McGushin)

-Train-the-Trainer Air Pollution Pack - partnership with Health Canada and WHO (Lead by Alan Abelsohn) - a project under development with the goal to promote awareness of the harms of air pollution among the international community of family doctors and other primary care providers.

- active emails group, which has grown to have now 62 members - we are experiencing vivid discussions about the ethics, science, and activism about environmental health.

- periodic videoconference meetings (with GoToMeeting kindly offered by Garth) - these online meetings organized by Alice McGushin, are facilitating the improving coordination of and sharing of ideas among our working party.

- two papers published in The Lancet Planetary Health by members of our working party: Challenges and opportunities in planetary health for primary care providers, and Bringing the planet into the generalist practice: a form of preventive care - these papers reflect the growing participation of WONCA within the international environmental health agenda.

-collaboration in Brainstorm Groups that resulted in Cross-cutting principles for planetary health education. - our working party was very active in collaborating with the Planetary Health Alliance for the development of the main educational principles for planetary health.

-participation and representation in various conferences, and some workshops accepted for WONCA Seoul 2018 and WONCA Europe Krakow 2018.

-a short movie in collaboration with WONCA rural seeds