CRCP units: a strategy to assess health risks in children in contaminated communities/Unidades RISC: una estrategia para evaluar riesgos de salud en la población infantil de comunidades contaminadas/Unidades RISC: uma estrategia para avaliar os riscos de saude na populacao infantil de comunidades contaminadas

• Published in: Revista panamericana de salud pública 2023-01, Vol.47
• Main Authors: Perez-Vazquez, Francisco J, Ramirez-Landeros, Laura M, Leon-Arce, Mauricio, Flores-Ramirez, Rogelio, Paz-Tovar, Claudia, Van Brussel, Evelyn, Diaz-Barriga, Fernando, Palacios-Ramirez, Andres
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• ISSN: 1020-4989

Humanitarian crises can occur in places affected by chemical, physical, biological, and social threats, especially when these threats interact with each other and cause a syndemic. In order to avoid crises in these places, it is necessary to introduce mitigation measures that we have framed as "humanitarian scenarios". Due to their nature, implementation of these interventions requires the creation of multidisciplinary operational groups with a work strategy that integrates them into the affected community. In the case of the child population, the operational group was called the 'childhood risks in contaminated places' (CRCP) unit; contaminated places meaning localities impacted by chemical, physical, or biological threats. The strategy has six phases: (i) planning the survey and site visit; (ii) community involvement in identifying threats, vulnerabilities, and routes of exposure (the path of pollutants from their source to the receiving population), and in preparing joint work for the subsequent phases; iii) prioritization of risks identified through environmental monitoring and use of biomarkers of exposure and effects; iv) risk prevention through the creation of various 'capacities and alternatives for the prevention of syndemic threats'; (v) advocacy to implement these capacities and alternatives through risk communication and local training; and (vi) protection through measures that include telehealth, social progress, and innovation to improve health coverage. The strategy has been implemented in different contexts, and in some of them it has been enriched by analysis of respect for human rights. Keywords Child health; pollution; risk assessment; right to health; vulnerability. Las crisis humanitarias pueden presentarse en sitios afectados por amenazas quimicas, fisicas, biologicas y sociales, sobre todo cuando estas amenazas interaccionan entre si y causan una sindemia. A fin de evitar las crisis, en estos sitios se hace necesario introducir medidas de mitigacion que hemos enmarcado bajo el termino de "escenarios humanitarios". Debido a su naturaleza, la implementacion de dichas acciones de intervencion requiere de la conformacion de grupos operativos multidisciplinarios y de una estrategia de trabajo que permita integrarlos con la comunidad afectada. En el caso de la poblacion infantil, el grupo operativo recibio el nombre de unidad de riesgos infantiles en sitios contaminados (RISC), es decir, en localidades impactadas por amenazas quimicas, fis