Peking University, December 30, 2021: Beijing Forum 2021 sub-forum on environmental health was held online on December 18^th and 19^th. This forum was organized by PKU’s College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and supported by the Energy Foundation. More than 40 experts and scholars at home and abroad were invited to the sub-forum to deliver speeches on the frontiers and challenges of environmental pollution. A total of 43 speeches were delivered across four sessions, attracting more than one thousand viewers.

Prof. Zhu Tong, dean of PKU’s College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering presided over the opening ceremony. Liu Yu, director of the department of Earth Science of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Li Jie, vice president of the Energy Foundation of China attended the forum and delivered opening speeches. Liu Yu noted in her opening speech that while environmental health issues have grown in prominence, China has made significant progress. However, in regards to environment health development in the future, it is important to take into consideration two important aspects: frontiers in environmental health and national demands. Subsequently, Li Jie introduced the role of the Energy Foundation in the development of China’s environmental health, noting that the foundation has put a lot of effort into ensuring that carbon dioxide emissions stay low during the upcoming Beijing 2022 Olympics Winter Games and Winter Paralympic Games.

In the first session on "New Progress in Environmental Health Studies", experts gave reports on cutting-edge environmental health researches which offer prospects for future research directions. They include probabilistic models for quantitatively distinguishing emissions and meteorological conditions, high-throughput non-targeted exposure analyses, and the development of extreme weather event models.


In the second session on "The Mechanism of Environmental Pollution on Human Health", the experts discussed the impact of environmental pollution on human health from perspectives including metabolomics, exposomic research and transcriptional regulation.
 

In the third session on “Indoor Exposure and Health Effects”, the experts discussed the health effects associated to indoor air pollutants, covering topics including the causal inference between health and residential air pollution, the indoor aerosol transmission of COVID-19 and the short-term effects of different-size indoor particles on the cardiopulmonary function of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


In the fourth session on "GeoHealth and Sustainability", the experts discussed the “Air Quality Guidelines for 2021” issued by the World Health Organization, changes in the global environment and planetary health, health and environmental effects of particulate matter, and the role of environmental economic analysis in providing strategies for environmental and social sustainability policies.


The environment is the basis for human survival. Thus, environmental health has emerged as an issue of common concern. The forum provided a platform for experts and scholars in the research field of environmental health to display their latest research results, exchange ideas with each other, stimulate original research ideas and promote further cooperation. Through participating in this event, experts were able to summarize the valuable experience of various countries in the control of environmental pollution, and put forward valuable suggestions for improving global environmental quality.

Written by: Fu Jiaqi
Edited by: June Tan Rui Min
Source：PKU News (Chinese)