[Environmental health counseling center of the Wiesbaden public health office--concept and initial experiences].

Abstract

Science-especially scientific investigations about toxic agents--has greatly improved our knowledge of toxic effects on humans in the last years. The fact that even very low concentrations of anthropogenic noxae can be harmful, is now well established. The population at large has developed considerable sensitivity and mind expansion for these problems, in respect of those pollutants, which can be expected to harm both human health and the environment. The fear that man-made pollution increases the risk of diseases is justified. For these reasons public health offices are being increasingly questioned practising and challenged by the population in General and also by physicians. Hence, in 1990 we decided to set up an advisory board in environmental medicine within the public health office to meet these demands. The idea behind this consulting project is to inform the community, the practitioners and especially the persons concerned with possible solutions of such problems. In the following we report on the planning, contents and aims of this programme. Summing up our experiences so far, we can say that the main task lies in the necessity to respond to individual problems of those who are concerned, of there who asked questions, and who take advantage of our offer. This is a difficult and demanding task, but it is worthwhile, because there is no alternative. Within a few months we successfully established the advisory board that has proved useful both to patients and to practising physicians.