2024 Central and Eastern European Conference on Health and the Environment (CEECHE): Seeking Solutions for Environmental Exposures and Disease Risks

Environmentally induced diseases are responsible for nearly a quarter of all deaths globally. In Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southern European regions, environmental impacts are exacerbated by poor ambient air quality, high residual contamination of water and soils, chemical contamination by persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and long-distance transport of environmental contaminants such as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substance (PFAS), microplastics, and military-related pollution. The goal of CEECHE is to allow contextualized scientific discussion that leads to solutions to improve public health in the region. CEECHE is a cooperative initiative of the US and European institutions allowing the scientific exchange to define the worldwide complex but common links between health and the environment. The inaugural CEECHE conference was held in 2004 in Prague, Czech Republic; subsequent events took place in Bratislava, Czech Republic (2006), Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2008 and 2014), Prague, Czech Republic (2016) Krakow, Poland (2018).