HOW WE LIVE NOW: THE CHALLENGE OF YOUTH CULTURE AND LIVING IN THE MODERN WORLD

In this issue, we touch in various ways on the condition of children and young people and how contemporary culture affects their public health.

In a lead editorial, a group from the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health make a call to arms to prevent the leading cause of death in young people: road traffic injuries. These account for 1.2 million deaths annually worldwide and 127 000 in the European region, with a particular impact on under 25 year olds. For every death 20 people are hospitalised and 70 require outpatient treatment. Yet injury prevention is barely on the radar of Departments of Health. The WHO Group draws further attention to the wider impact of traffic on health through traffic-related air pollution and obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and, in the future, through gas emissions and the contribution to global warming.

See page 842

There is something wrong about how we have shaped modern environmental conditions for the next generation; the moral panic …