First International Environmental Health Conference in Iran

The 19^th National and 1^st international Environmental Health and Sustainable Development Conference was held in Tehran, Iran from 22-24 October 2016. Organised by the Iranian Association of Environmental Health (IAEH) and the Institute for Environmental Research (IER), Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), national and international organisations and leaders contributed to the success of this major event, including Iran’s Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Development Programme.

More than 1600 national and international environmental health scientists, policy-makers and senior decision-makers gathered in Tehran to present and discuss state-of-the-science achievements on topics related to environmental health. A special emphasis was set on the UN sustainable development goals.

"Science has no borders nor do environmental problems."

In his Opening Ceremony speech Prof. Nino Künzli welcomed the international audience on behalf of Swiss TPH, the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE). He congratulated the Iranian leaders for opening the conference to an international audience: "Science has no borders nor do environmental problems," Künzli said. He emphasised the need of a globalised economy to also globalise scientific evidence about the role of the environment in public health.

The conference was organised to exchange achievements and to benefit from the experiences of the international scientific community to translate knowledge into policies and action plans to protect public health. Prof. Nino Künzli was also invited to deliver the closing statement prepared by the conference committee, which was well received by Iranian media.

Strong Swiss collaborations

The collaboration between Swiss TPH and both, the IER and Sharif University of Technology has been initiated in 2013 through a WHO Training course on “Cohort Studies in Air Pollution and Health Research”. Memoranda of Understanding and scholarships under the umbrella of the Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Scholars provided by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation of Switzerland strengthen exchange in research and training.