title: Chile Confronts its Environmental Health Future After 25 Years of Accelerated Growth.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Chile has recently been reclassified by the World Bank from an upper-middle-income country to a high-income country. There has been great progress in the last 20 to 30 years in relation to air and water pollution in Chile. Yet after 25 years of unrestrained growth, there remain clear challenges posed by air and water pollution, as well as climate change.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to review environmental health in Chile.
  
  
  METHODS
  In late 2013, a 3-day workshop on environmental health was held in Santiago, Chile, bringing together researchers and government policymakers. As a follow-up to that workshop, here we review the progress made in environmental health in the past 20 to 30 years and discuss the challenges of the future. We focus on air and water pollution and climate change, which we believe are among the most important areas of environmental health in Chile.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Air pollution in some cities remains among the highest in the continent. Potable water is generally available, but weak state supervision has led to serious outbreaks of infectious disease and ongoing issues with arsenic exposure in some regions. Climate change modeling in Chile is quite sophisticated, and a number of the impacts of climate change can be reasonably predicted in terms of which areas of the country are most likely to be affected by increased temperature and decreased availability of water, as well as expansion of vector territory. Some health effects, including changes in vector-borne diseases and excess heat mortality, can be predicted. However, there has yet to be an integration of such research with government planning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although great progress has been made, currently there are a number of problems. We suspect that the Chilean experience in environmental health may be of some use for other Latin American countries with rapid economic development.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Paulina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pino
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Verónica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Iglesias
authors.affiliation: Center of Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) and Geophysics Department, Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garreaud
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Advanced Center for Chronic Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cortés
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Mauricio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Canals
authors.affiliation: Environmental Health Department, Division of Healthy Public Policy and Advocacy, Subsecretariat of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Folch
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Soledad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Burgos
authors.affiliation: Environmental Health Department, Rollins School of Public Health University of Emory, Atlanta, GA.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.affiliation: College of Public Health, Environmental Health Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.
authors.forename: Luke P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Naeher
authors.affiliation: Environmental Health Department, Rollins School of Public Health University of Emory, Atlanta, GA. Electronic address: nsteenl@sph.emory.edu.
authors.forename: Kyle
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Steenland
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution; D002677:Chile; D057231:Climate Change; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D014876:Water Pollution
keywords: Chile; air pollution; climate change; policy; water pollution