International Federation of Environmental Health report.

With the close of the 5th World Congress on Environmental Health, held last June in Stockholm, preparations for the 6th World Congress in 2000 are becoming more intense. The Congress, whose theme is "Healthy Environments - The Local Challenge," will be held June 5-9 in Oslo, Norway. A Call for Papers and preliminary program will be distributed in January 1999, and the deadline for submission of abstracts is September 1999. To be placed on the mailing list for further information concerning the World Congress, contact the International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) at:

Congress Secretariat IFEH World Congress 2000 Help Arrangement - Service AS P.O. Box 527 N-1301 Sandvika, Norway Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

The city of Oslo celebrates its 1000-year jubilee in 2000, and there will be many activities within the City for the celebration, especially during the summer months when the World Congress is being held.

Several developing nations within Africa are being assisted by the IFEH in their development of a professional environmental health work force and their own professional associations. A request for assistance was received by IFEH from environmental health colleagues in Tanzania because of difficulties they were having in convincing the government to set up an environmental health degree course in Tanzania. After the active involvement of IFEH (with funding assistance from the Northern Irish Center of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) in meetings with Tanzanian officials, it is now probable that there will be an environmental health degree course in Tanzania by September 2000, when the first undergraduates will be enrolled. IFEH will shortly be initiating a drive for donations to enable the Tanzanians to purchase books for the creation of a new environmental health library in Tanzania to support the degree program.

As discussed at a meeting of The Americas Regional Group of the IFEH held at NEHA's AEC in Las Vegas, there is a proposal to set up "twinning" arrangements for networking between Zwaziland, Ethiopia, and Namibia and the IFEH associate members of California, Arizona, and Minnesota. Boards of Directors of each of the state associations will be discussing the establishment of such a networking arrangement with one of the African nations. The relationship would likely take the form of the state associations sending journals, writing letters of support, and providing general information to the environmental health organizations in those African countries.

NEHA's liaison to the IFEH is NEHA Past President Diane Evans, whose phone number (with new area code) is [phone]. Email: [e-mail].

IFEH also has a discussion forum that is open to anyone who is interested. To participate, contact IFEH President Michael Halls by email at: [e-mail].

For anyone interested in contacting IFEH Public Relations Officer Richard Sprenger (responsible for the newsletter and other publications), please email him at: Richard. [e-mail].

IFEH's Internet address is: http://www.med.ed.ac.uk/hew/ifeh.